Europe Is Turning to Metrics to Govern Innovation With Uncertain Results
The continent’s struggle to convert scientific strength into technological and economic leadership is increasingly framed as a question of execution, not ambition.
Europe’s difficulty in translating world-class research into competitive technology and industry is no longer framed as a lack of ideas. Across European institutions, the diagnosis is widely shared: the continent produces strong science but struggles to scale innovation fast enough to compete globally.
That concern sat at the center of the 2024 Draghi Report on European competitiveness, commissioned by the European Commission and authored by former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi. The report warned that Europe is falling behind rivals in productivity, strategic technologies, and industrial deployment, not because priorities are unclear, but because follow-through remains weak.
The debate has since shifted toward a harder question: how to tell whether long-standing recommendations are actually being carried out in a system where authority is fragmented and enforcement tools are limited. Increasingly, Europe is turning to measurement as a way to apply pressure where formal power is diffuse.
Rather than introduce new regulations or funding mechanisms, a new benchmarking tool based on Draghi’s recommendations aims to make progress or the lack of it more visible, and therefore harder to ignore.
From Vision to Trackable Action
The JEDI Draghi Tracker, launched earlier this year by the Joint European Disruptive Initiative (JEDI), is a quarterly framework designed to assess how effectively Europe is implementing parts of the Draghi competitiveness agenda. It was presented to policymakers, industry leaders, and researchers as an effort to move from repeated diagnosis toward observable action.
The Draghi Report itself outlined 383 recommendations spanning regulation, innovation policy, and industrial strategy. The tracker narrows that field to 20 measures judged most consequential and scores them based on concrete implementation, ranging from “not discussed” to “fully implemented.”
André Loesekrug-Pietri, chair and scientific director of JEDI, framed the tracker as a test of political speed rather than intent. “It is not just a question of money but a question of moonshot approach and speed when we fund breakthrough technologies and science,” he said at the launch in Davos.
Early results are sobering. Public updates show that only a small share of the selected measures have reached full implementation more than a year after the Draghi Report’s release. An independent audit found that just over 11% of the report’s recommendations were fully implemented within that timeframe, with many others stalled or incomplete.
The gap between ambition and execution is both procedural and financial.
What Metrics Can and Can’t Do
Recent estimates suggest the annual investment required to close Europe’s competitiveness gap has grown sharply, from roughly €800 billion to as much as €1.2 trillion, driven in part by rising defense requirements alongside energy, technology, and industrial priorities.
Metrics can clarify where progress is lagging, but they cannot mobilize resources, resolve political trade-offs, or compel governments to act collectively at that scale.
Benchmarking tools like the Draghi Tracker sit at the intersection of evidence and politics. By making performance public and comparable, they can influence debate, shape investment decisions, and expose delays, a form of pressure in systems where centralized authority is limited.
There are signs this approach can work. Europe has moved more decisively on critical raw materials strategies aligned with U.N. frameworks, and in early 2026 the proposed “E.U.-Inc.” 28th regime for startups entered its formal legislative path, an effort to reduce cross-border barriers for scaling firms. These cases suggest that when political incentives align, execution can follow.
But measurement alone cannot substitute for political choice. In Europe’s multi-layered system, national priorities, regulatory complexity, and budget constraints continue to slow momentum, even when the diagnosis is widely shared.
Governing by Measurement
The rise of tools like the Draghi Tracker reflects a broader shift. Where binding authority is scarce, measurement is increasingly used to guide behavior and establish shared reference points.
This is not unique to Europe. In climate policy, global health, and artificial intelligence, indicators and benchmarks are increasingly used to align expectations when formal rules are politically out of reach. What distinguishes the European case is its intent: using measurement to close the gap between strategic clarity and execution.
Whether that effort succeeds will depend less on the tracker itself than on how governments and institutions respond to what it shows.
As Enrico Letta, former Italian prime minister and author of a parallel report on single-market reform, warned when laying the groundwork for the current agenda:
“If we continue to know what must be done but delay acting on it, we will end up managing decline rather than shaping the future.”