Innovation in Portugal: from potential to the urgent need for transformation

In Portugal, we like to talk about innovation, but we continue to treat it as a luxury rather than embracing it as the only strategic path for the future. The National Innovation Report 2024, recently published, is clear: we have made progress, but not enough. Startups are growing, patents are increasing, and tax incentives are multiplying. However, we are still far from a true knowledge-based economy, with companies leading globally. We talk a lot about innovation, but we invest little, we take fewer risks and, too often, we remain trapped in a dependency on public funds as if they were our salvation.

It is undeniable that we have talent, quality research, and sectors that are already making their mark globally. But the truth is that the Portuguese business fabric remains timid, lacking the boldness necessary to transform ideas into big businesses, science into industry, and technology into exportable value. We lack scale, but above all, we lack courage. And that courage cannot be bought with more bureaucracy nor with endless dossiers to secure support. It is bought with vision, with robust private investment, with venture capital that actually takes risks, and with companies that are not afraid to compete in the most demanding markets.

The report points to ways forward: innovation clusters, strategic consortia, talent retention, and alignment with the green and digital transition. All of this is valid and urgent. But without a change in attitude, we will continue to live by the exception rather than the rule. We cannot be content with being the European Union's "good students" when the goal should be to aspire to leadership. We must stop looking at innovation as a cost and start seeing it as the most valuable of opportunities.

In short, Portugal can no longer afford the luxury of treating innovation as something optional. At stake is our productivity, our international competitiveness, and our future sustainability. Companies must assume this mission, with more boldness and less hesitation, clearly committing to innovation, taking more risks, and depending less on the State, or we will be condemned to repeat the same conversation every year: great potential, little transformation. The moment to turn potential into reality is neither distant nor abstract. It is now. And it is everyone's responsibility — especially that of companies — not to let this opportunity slip away again.