This chapter outlines the context and background for the analysis of Spain’s innovative entrepreneurial ecosystem. It details the framework used and the methodology applied to conduct the entrepreneurial ecosystem diagnosis.
Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Diagnostics of Spain
Abstract
Enabling business startups and scaleups, particularly those involved with innovation, is increasingly recognised as a vital pillar of economic policy in modern economies helping to drive innovation, productivity growth, job creation, and competitiveness. However, across countries, startups and scaleups often face significant challenges such as limited access to finance, regulatory burdens, or skills shortages.
The successful creation and development of productive entrepreneurial ventures is stimulated by multiple, interconnected supporting conditions and actors in entrepreneurial ecosystems. An entrepreneurial ecosystem can be defined as: the set of interdependent actors and factors co-ordinated in such a way as that they enable productive entrepreneurship (OECD, 2025[1]).They encompass a range of institutional conditions and access to resources conditions that together support or hinder business startups and scaleups. Particular emphasis is placed on conditions that foster productive entrepreneurship, with a focus on firms that innovate or contribute to growth and/or employment (Baumol, Litan and Schramm, 2009[2]; Baum and Silverman, 2004[3]; Shane, 2009[4]; Kolev et al., 2023[5]).
In recent years, entrepreneurship policy has increasingly shifted its focus from a siloed approach focused on working separately on improving different supports for startups and scaleups, such as entrepreneurship training or entrepreneurial finance, toward identifying the functioning of the ecosystem as a whole in support of entrepreneurship and addressing systemic barriers and closing critical gaps. This requires a diagnosis of ecosystem strengths and weaknesses, which will vary across different ecosystems.
Spain has made remarkable strides over the past decades in building a healthy entrepreneurial ecosystem. Through policy reforms, the creation of innovation hubs, and increased public and private investment, Spain’s entrepreneurial ecosystem has become much stronger and deeper than only a couple of decades ago. Notably, the introduction of the Startup Law in 2022 represented an important milestone in pushing the startup and scaleup agenda to the forefront and in aligning the efforts of public institutions and private stakeholders to catch up with the top startup hubs in Europe. The progress made by Spain in this domain aligns with European strategies such as “Startup Europe”, an initiative of the European Commission to connect high tech start-ups, scale-ups, investors, accelerators, corporate networks, universities and the media and the European Union Startup and Scaleup Strategy.
Spain is one of the leading countries in the OECD and European Union in developing actions in support of this agenda and in taking a comprehensive and holistic approach to startup and scaleup policy. The national authorities have worked with stakeholders to identify the priority actions in the Startup Law and to put them into practice. This report helps to take this work a step forward, by looking at the remaining challenges for strengthening the entrepreneurial ecosystem and identifying the policy actions that will help.
The report applies the OECD entrepreneurial ecosystem diagnostics framework to identify the areas for development (OECD, 2025[1]). The methodology combines a quantitative and qualitative approach. Using international indicators, the quantitative assessment provides a quantitative benchmarking of entrepreneurship levels and ecosystem drivers between Spain and comparator countries, with a focus on leading entrepreneurial ecosystems in the form of the European OECD countries. This is complemented by rich qualitative inputs from stakeholder interviews and workshops to support the development of the policy conclusions.
Using this approach, the report identifies areas of relative strength and weakness within Spain’s entrepreneurial ecosystem, pointing to areas where there are opportunities to stimulate further ecosystem growth through targeted policy actions. It also identifies international best policy practices to provide inspiration for policy development.
The report proceeds as follows. The rest of this chapter sets out the methodology used for the ecosystem assessment. Chapter 2 provides indicators on entrepreneurship levels comparing Spain with other countries in terms of startup activity, dynamism and balance. Chapters 3-12 then assess Spain’s strengths and weaknesses on the ten elements in the OECD entrepreneurial ecosystem diagnostics framework (described in the next section). Each of these chapters provides, for a given element: i. An initial assessment based on available quantitative indicators; ii. A qualitative assessment based on the information provided by Spanish stakeholders; iii. A mapping of the major supporting policy initiatives; iv. Recommendations. Chapter 13 delves into five cross-cutting issues affecting Spain’s entrepreneurial ecosystem – women entrepreneurship; the regional distribution of entrepreneurship; startup internationalization through startup activity abroad and attracting entrepreneurial talent to Spain; policy co‑ordination across Spanish stakeholders; and policy granularity in terms of public support instruments available to entrepreneurs in different development stages and sectors. Chapter 14 concludes and provides detailed recommendations.
The OECD has developed a framework to assess entrepreneurial ecosystems. It builds on existing literature (OECD, 2025[1]), (Wurth, Stam and Spigel, 2023[6]) and (OECD, 2022[7]), and identifies ten entrepreneurial ecosystem elements that interact to drive the creation of productive startups and scaleups.
Source: (OECD, 2025[1])
The elements composing the framework are founded in the findings of the entrepreneurship research literature on the factors influencing entrepreneurship performance in a place. Based on this literature the ten elements are:
Institutions. Institutions impact entrepreneurship by setting laws, regulations, and mechanisms that reduce uncertainty for firms in interacting with other businesses (e.g. contract enforcement) and in making investments (e.g. property rights). The element measures the extent to which a country has in place an administrative system, regulatory structure and taxation levels that facilitate economic activity and allow entrepreneurs to operate.
Entrepreneurial Culture. Culture reflects how entrepreneurship is perceived in society. The extent to which a country’s social norms, values and customs reward entrepreneurial efforts impact entrepreneurship outcomes directly.
Networks. Exchange of information and collaboration on resources and technology development can help startups to advance their capabilities and grow. The Networks element captures the extent to which start-ups and scale-ups establish collaborations with other firms and ecosystem actors to maximise synergies and available resources.
Infrastructure. Digital and physical (transport) connectivity enables entrepreneurs to access markets, exchange information and trade.
Markets. Startups and scaleups benefit from accessing a large (domestic and international) customer base.
Finance. Financial resources enable the investments necessary for the creation and growth of start-ups and scale-ups. While startups often rely on venture capital, the availability of other types of financial resources (e.g. bank credit) is also relevant.
Knowledge. The availability of a knowledge base is essential for enabling entrepreneurs to transform new technologies into commercial business.
Talent. The availability of skilled workers and entrepreneurs is another essential factor for the creation and development of startups and scaleups.
Leadership. The presence of public and private actors who can guide aspiring entrepreneurs to achieve their potential plays an important role in weaving the ecosystem together. Founders of startups and scaleups can benefit significantly from exchanges with former entrepreneurs or serial entrepreneurs who can advise them on how to become successful. In some countries, the startup ecosystem is not only shaped by serial entrepreneurs, but the public sector takes on an important leadership of role, inspiring, encouraging and guiding emerging entrepreneurs to build successful ventures.
Intermediate Services. The presence of entrepreneurship-targeted business services – such as legal support, accountancy, and consultancy and advice – lower entry barriers for entrepreneurs and can help them to grow their business.
Using the OECD entrepreneurial ecosystems diagnostics framework, the assessment of the Spanish ecosystem combined statistical indicators and qualitative assessment.
Quantitative benchmarking
The statistical benchmarking followed the approach described by (Crotti et al., 2025[8]) using the set of indicators described in Box 1.1.
The quantitative assessment in this report builds on the indicators and comparisons in the OECD Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Diagnostics framework and indicators, with extensions and adaptations to support the benchmarking of Spain.
Indicators selection
Indicators are selected from available high-quality statistical sources that measure concepts grounded in the research literature. The following indicators are used to benchmark Spain’s entrepreneurial ecosystem elements, outputs and internal geographical variation.
Normalisation
Each variable is normalised to ensure consistency in units across all indicators. This is done in two steps. First, moving averages for the periods 2016-2020 and 2020-2023 are computed from the time series of the raw values. This reduces the importance of any missing values and smooths data fluctuations across years. Second, each moving average value is transformed into a 0-100 score. All indicators are normalised using a clipped min-max normalisation method. For each indicator, the minimum value is equal to the cross-country mean minus two times the standard deviation, and the maximum value is equal to the cross-section mean plus two times the standard deviation. The normalised score is then computed as 100*(value-minimum)/(maximum-minimum). Whenever an indicator is such that a high value corresponds to a negative outcome (e.g. taxation, debt), the normalisation is computed as 100*(value-maximum)/ (minimum -maximum).
European OECD countries – rather than all OECD countries – were selected as the benchmark group for assessing the Spanish ecosystem. This includes both European Union (EU) countries and non-EU European countries (e.g. Switzerland and Great Britain). It excludes European Union non-OECD countries (such as Bulgaria and Romania) and non-European OECD countries (e.g. Japan, Mexico, Colombia among others).
Since only European OECD countries data are considered, which have high performance relative to the OECD average as a group, this report benchmarks Spain with a group of the most advanced entrepreneurial ecosystems. At the same time, by focusing on European comparisons, the benchmarking focuses on entrepreneurial ecosystems that share similar institutional and economic conditions. This takes into account the fact that European countries are interlinked and share similar structural characteristics. For example, the government tends to play a bigger role in the economy in European OECD countries than non-European OECD countries. According to the IMF World Economic Outlook statistics, the average government expenditure to GDP in the EU was approximately 49% in 2023, compared with about 36% in the United States, 33% in Colombia, 37% in Australia and 28% in Mexico. European OECD economies also tend to be more regulated and have lower labour market turnover than non-European OECD countries. Further, there are several European OECD countries which are also members of the European Union. They thus share European institutions (e.g. European Central Bank), regulations (e.g. European directives) and the European single market for goods, services, capital and labour. There is also a stronger degree of competition among ecosystems within a single market in trying to attract and develop entrepreneurs and investors, which makes benchmarking across these economies particularly interesting.
The combination of several indicators and data sources provides a good high-level overview of the Spanish entrepreneurial ecosystem in comparison with other European OECD countries. While the available indicators may not precisely track all relevant ecosystem factors for all countries, they offer a consistent basis for identifying main strengths and bottlenecks in the Spanish ecosystem using comparisons with the strengths and weaknesses of its European OECD peers.
Stakeholder discussions
The stakeholder interviews and workshops provide rich complementary information on the nature, causes and potential policy responses to ecosystem strength and weaknesses. The OECD and Spanish government authorities identified individuals representing a range of actors in the Spanish entrepreneurial ecosystem, including policy authorities, the private sector and regional authorities. Interviews and workshops were held with these actors through in-person meetings during the last week of January 2025, and virtual meetings and calls in February and March 2025. In these interviews, OECD staff invited stakeholders to share their perspectives on the state of the Spanish ecosystem based on their own experiences. Targeted questions were also posed on specific elements where stakeholders had expertise or direct involvement. For example, representatives of venture capital organisations were asked about financing conditions, while university representatives were asked about knowledge and talent.
Representatives of the following institutions and organisations were interviewed:
Adigital
AEBAN
AGNOSPCB
Ances
Asociación Española de Startups
Aurea Avionics
Axis Participaciones Empresariales
Bolsas y Mercados Españoles (BME)
Centro para el Desarrollo Tecnológico y la Innovación
Compluemprende
Endevor
Enercraft
Enisa
Escuela de Organización Industrial
Fundación Innovación Bankinter
Gobe Ventures
Icex
IE University
Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades
Ministerio de Economía, Comercio y Empresa
Ministerio de Hacienda
Ministerio de Inclusión, Seguridad Social y Migraciones
Ministerio de Industria y Turismo
Ministerio para la Transformación Digital y de la Función Pública
Oficina Española de Patentes y Marcas (OEPM)
RED.es
South Summit
Spaincap
Tucuvi Care
Universidad Carlos III de Madrid.
In addition, a questionnaire prepared and administered by the OECD over the period December 2024 - February 2025 was distributed to about 40 organisations and entities. The answers to these questionnaires were received and processed by the OECD secretariat.
References
[3] Baum, J. and B. Silverman (2004), “Picking winners or building them? Alliance, intellectual, and human capital as selection criteria in venture financing and performance of biotechnology startups”, Journal of Business Venturing, Vol. 19/3, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0883-9026(03)00038-7.
[2] Baumol, W., R. Litan and C. Schramm (2009), Good capitalism, bad capitalism, and the economics of growth and prosperity, https://doi.org/10.32418/rfs.2009.256.1996.
[8] Crotti, R. et al. (2025), “Data and methods for entrepreneurial ecosystem diagnostics”.
[5] Kolev, J. et al. (2023), “Of Academics and Creative Destruction: Startup Advantage in the Process of Innovation”, Academy of Management Proceedings, Vol. 2023/1, https://doi.org/10.5465/amproc.2023.15844abstract.
[1] OECD (2025), Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Diagnostics Report, https://www.oecd.org/en/publications/entrepreneurial-ecosystem-diagnostics_7096961f-en.html.
[7] OECD (2022), Financing Growth and Turning Data into Business: Helping SMEs Scale Up, OECD Studies on SMEs and Entrepreneurship, OECD Publishing.
[4] Shane, S. (2009), “Why encouraging more people to become entrepreneurs is bad public policy”, Small Business Economics, Vol. 33/2, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11187-009-9215-5.
[6] Wurth, B., E. Stam and B. Spigel (2023), “Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Mechanisms”, Foundations and Trends in Entrepreneurship, Vol. 19/3, https://doi.org/10.1561/0300000089.