In 2025, Bulgaria continues to walk a fine line—between the opportunity to establish itself as a regional innovation hub and the risk of economic and technological marginalisation in an era of growing geopolitical fragmentation. This is one of the key conclusions of the traditional annual report “Innovation.bg 2025” by the Applied Research and Communications Fund, which provides a yearly assessment of the state and potential for innovation in the Bulgarian economy.
Still among the “Emerging Innovators”
Bulgaria once again falls into the group of “Emerging Innovators”, ranking 26th in the EU according to the European Innovation Scoreboard. The report highlights limited progress, pronounced internal disparities, a strong concentration of innovation capacity in Sofia, and a high dependence on external (European) funding.
The country has again failed to meet its national target of moving into the higher category of “Moderate Innovators.” In 2025, this group includes several Central and Eastern European countries with similar economic histories and potential, such as Croatia, Czechia, Lithuania, and Slovenia. The significant gap between Bulgaria and regional leaders—Estonia and Slovenia—as well as the region’s leading economy, Poland, underscores the lack of sustained political focus on developing the national innovation ecosystem, the report notes.
“Bulgaria continues to rely almost exclusively on European Union instruments and funding, which significantly hampers its ability to close the gap with leading economies. Given the long-term nature of innovation policies and the absence of qualitative change in the national approach to the innovation ecosystem, the likelihood that Bulgaria will close—or even maintain—its distance from regional leaders remains low,” commented Ruslan Stefanov, Director of Strategy and Innovation at the Applied Research and Communications Fund, in an interview with Capital.
Key areas of lagging performance
According to “Innovation.bg 2025,” Bulgaria shows the most serious shortcomings in several areas:
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Lifelong learning – last place in the EU, reaching only 10% of the EU average.
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Population with digital skills above basic level – only 16% of the EU average, in stark contrast to the country’s strong performance in internet access.
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Labour productivity – just 9.7% of the EU average, while resource productivity remains at 13.5%.
Another benchmark, the Global Innovation Index developed by the World Intellectual Property Organization, ranks Bulgaria 37th out of 139 countries worldwide. Although this represents a one-position improvement compared to the previous year, Bulgaria held the same rank in 2020, indicating a lack of long-term progress. Within the EU, Bulgaria ranks 21st—unchanged from the previous year—outperforming Poland, Latvia, Greece, Croatia, Slovakia, and Romania.
Read the full article on Capital’s website.
