The Regional Innovation Scoreboard 2012 presented by the European Commission and that compares 190 European regions shows that there is considerable diversity in regional innovation performance not only across Europe but also within the Member States. Most of the European countries have regions at different levels of innovation performance. The report also shows how in almost all European countries capital regions are the national innovation leaders.

The Regional Innovation Scoreboard 2012 which provides a comparative assessment of how European regions perform with regard to innovation, was published by the European Commission. This Scoreboard is based on the methodology of the Innovation Union Scoreboard, and covers 190 regions across the European Union, Croatia, Norway and Switzerland. In February 2012, the Innovation Union Scoreboard 2011 showed that enterprises must boost innovation within the EU. According to the report, there are 41 regions in the first group of "innovation leaders", 58 regions belong to the second group of "innovation followers", 39 regions are "moderate innovators" and 52 regions are in the fourth group of "modest innovators".

The results show that there is considerable diversity in regional innovation performance not only across Europe but also within the Member States. The most pronounced examples are France and Portugal: in both countries the performance of regions (including overseas territories) ranges from innovation leaders to modest innovators. Other countries with wide variations in performance are Czech Republic, Finland, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden and the United Kingdom: all have at least one region in 3 different innovation performance groups.

The Regional Innovation Scoreboard 2012 also shows that at this stage there is a lack of common pattern linking innovation performance and the use of EU funds in regions across time. In addition, there is a relatively low number of patents and technological and non-technological innovative products and solutions that are developed in moderate and modest innovator regions.