Despite the strong growth the Greek economy has been experiencing since the pandemic, our country continues to face serious weaknesses in the area of innovation.
According to the European Commission’s new report, insufficient funding remains a key obstacle, limiting Greece’s ability to fully leverage the potential of its strong scientific and research base.
Private investment in Research and Development remains low
To be precise, according to the “European Innovation Scoreboard 2025,” Greece is classified as a “moderate innovator,” with a performance level corresponding to 75.8% of the European Union average. In fact, since 2018, it has shown faster improvement compared to the European average.
However, private investment in Research and Development (R&D) remains low. Direct and indirect public support for business R&D has increased, but private-sector spending still lags significantly behind the European Union average.
Total public support for business R&D in 2024 stood at approximately 0.17% of GDP, lower than the EU average of nearly 0.20%.
At the same time, both the size and the value added of medium- and high-tech manufacturing remain significantly lower than the European average. Specifically, the value added of medium- and high-tech manufacturing accounted for just 2% of total value added in Greece in 2024, compared to 5.21% in the EU.
Limited link between academic research and industry
Furthermore, there is the problem of insufficient links between research institutions and businesses. Both the percentage of researchers working in the business sector and performance on innovation indicators—such as patent applications—remain below the European average.
It should, of course, be noted that European funding programs —such as those carried out through the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF)—have begun to support technology transfer offices. This trend is also reflected in the growing participation of the public and private sectors in joint scientific publications, which accounted for 9.01% of all publications in 2024, compared to 7.62% in the EU.
Nevertheless, significant challenges remain, such as limited funding for technology transfer offices and low industry participation.
Why Greek Startups Don’t Make It to the Next Stage
Regarding the startup ecosystem, our country shows strong growth momentum, but the potential for further scaling remains limited.
In 2024, more than 90 startups raised a total of 555 million euros, marking a 15% increase compared to the previous year. However, despite this positive trend, investments from venture capital funds remain below the European Union average, a fact that demonstrates that the domestic ecosystem continues to rely primarily on state-supported initiatives rather than on a sufficiently developed private capital market.
Indeed, government initiatives such as the “Golden Visa” for startups, the expansion of tax incentives for Research and Development expenditures, as well as incentives for investments by business angels—aim to enhance startups’ access to capital. Additionally, the “Elevate Greece” program has helped boost the visibility and international reach of startups with high growth potential.
However, in the more mature stages of development, significant funding gaps remain, limiting the ability of Greek startups to grow further and strengthen their international presence.
The adoption of key digital technologies by businesses lags behind the European average
Finally, the Commission highlights the issue of digital transformation, emphasizing that there is significant room for further digitization of businesses in Greece, especially small and medium-sized enterprises. Despite the measures implemented in recent years, the adoption of key digital technologies by businesses—such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and data analytics—continues to lag behind the European Union average.
For example, in 2025, only 8.93% of businesses in Greece were utilizing Artificial Intelligence technologies, compared to 19.95% in the European Union.
To address this issue, support policies have been strengthened through the Recovery and Resilience Facility (RRF) and the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF), with the aim of accelerating digital investments by small and medium-sized enterprises, particularly in cloud applications and digital services.
Although progress has been made in specific sectors—such as e-commerce, where Greece has a performance rate of 23.48% compared to 20.26% in the EU — the Commission estimates that broader adoption of advanced digital technologies could significantly boost the competitiveness and outward orientation of Greek businesses.