People realize their potential more fully when their educational success does not depend as strongly on their social background. The benefits are felt not only by individuals but also in the economy and society at large. A study led by researchers at the University of Zurich (UZH) and the Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW Mannheim) shows that greater intergenerational educational mobility goes hand in hand with significantly higher innovation output across Europe.
"Our results highlight that investment in improving educational opportunities delivers not only social but also economic returns," says Patrick Lehnert, UZH professor of personnel economics. "It is precisely those regions with low mobility that hold large, currently untapped innovation potential."
Better deployment of talent
The researchers explain this relationship as a matter of tapping into existing skills and talent more effectively. When individual ability rather than social background determines educational and career paths, a society's innovation output rises. "When a cohort reaches working age, higher educational mobility leads to an increase in patent applications of roughly 11 percent on average," says Sarah McNamara of ZEW Mannheim.
The findings challenge the widespread assumption that there is a trade-off between equal opportunity and economic performance. Instead, they show that fairer educational opportunities can significantly contribute to economic success.
Regional differences in educational mobility
The study also documents substantial differences within Europe. Regions with low educational mobility tend to also show high educational inequality – a pattern known in income research as the Great Gatsby Curve. The researchers have now visualized this relationship for the first time in the form of a Great Gatsby Map for Europe.
Educational mobility is particularly low in some parts of southern and eastern Europe. Northern and central Europe, by contrast, tend to show less inequality both within and between generations. At the same time, pronounced regional differences also exist within individual countries such as Germany and France.
Education policy as innovation policy
The analyses also show that the link between educational mobility and innovation is not equally strong everywhere. Regions with low mobility have the most to gain from improvements in educational opportunity. There, improving access to educational opportunities can trigger an above-average surge in innovation.
"According to our results, what counts is not the average level of education alone, but above all how fairly educational opportunities are distributed," concludes Guido Neidhöfer of ZEW Mannheim. "When people have access to high-quality education regardless of their background, talent is put to better use and contributes more to social and technological progress." The researchers see this as an important finding for education and economic policy: measures that promote equal opportunity can also strengthen a region's capacity for innovation over the long run.
New dataset for European regions
The study draws on the newly developed EUROPE-IGM-ATLAS dataset, which researchers from UZH and ZEW Mannheim helped to build. For the first time, it provides annual indicators of intergenerational educational mobility for European regions over the period from 1985 to 2025. The team combined harmonized microdata from the European Social Survey with age-specific profiles of labor-market and innovation participation and then linked these to regional patent data from the European Patent Office.
Literature
Sarah McNamara, Guido Neidhöfer, Patrick Lehnert. Intergenerational Mobility Fosters Innovation in Europe. Nature. 8 July 2026. DOI: 10.1038/s41586-026-10736-9
