Order of European Inventors and Innovators
The number of engineering graduates is the usual indicator when a country’s technical human capital comes up for discussion. The European Commission’s Education and Training Monitor shows that in 2023 the Union had 14.3 tertiary graduates in STEM fields per 1,000 people aged 20 to 34, and 11.8 medium-level vocational STEM graduates per 1,000 young people. In 2024, 27.2% of adults aged 25 to 64 held a tertiary qualification in a STEM field.
That indicator measures how many people have been through technical training. The complementary measure — how many of them have ever conceived something that does not yet exist — stays outside the statistics, although it decides how many patents will be filed ten years from now.
The degree and the first solution of one’s own
An engineering graduate commands calculation methods, standards and design tools. Moving from applying them to formulating a new problem calls for a distinct kind of training, acquired through repeated exercise and through contact with real problems.
A young person who has taken an idea of their own through to a working prototype has already travelled the whole road: they noticed a gap, formulated it technically, tried, erred, corrected. That experience changes the way they will approach every problem afterwards.
The age at which it is decided
Interest in technical work forms early and consolidates during the secondary years, when a pupil chooses their path. A pupil who has watched an invention come into being, or taken part in building one, has a concrete reference point for that choice.
Invention fairs, technical clubs in schools and project competitions work as reference points of that kind. They call for an adult who organises them and a budget covering travel and materials — two modest conditions that many schools meet with difficulty.
Girls and technical creation
In 2023, 32.2% of those enrolled in tertiary STEM programmes in the European Union were women; in computing the share was 20.3%, and in engineering 27.7%. The Union has set targets for 2030: at least two in five people enrolled in tertiary STEM programmes, and one in three in ICT doctorates, should be women.
Visible role models count for more here than campaigns. A woman inventor presenting her solution to a class produces an effect that no brochure reproduces.
Recognition as an instrument of orientation
An award won at a young age changes the way a young person sees themselves. The Order grants distinctions precisely because public recognition of technical merit works as a mechanism of professional orientation, beyond its symbolic role.
A debut section at invention fairs, assessed by specialists and paired with a mentor for each participant, would turn occasional participation into a path.
We hold that the formation of inventors begins long before university, and that the measures which count are small ones: a trained teacher, a travel budget, a real industrial problem brought into the classroom, and a jury that takes a child’s first solution seriously.