  We have studied the efficiency of research in the EU by a percentile-based
citation approach that analyzes the distribution of country papers among the
world papers. Going up in the citation scale, the frequency of papers from
efficient countries increases while the frequency from inefficient countries
decreases. In the percentile-based approach, this trend, which is permanent at
any citation level, is measured by the ep index that equals the Ptop 1%/Ptop
10% ratio. By using the ep index we demonstrate that EU research on
fast-evolving technological topics is less efficient than the world average and
that the EU is far from being able to compete with the most advanced countries.
The ep index also shows that the USA is well ahead of the EU in both fast- and
slow-evolving technologies, which suggests that the advantage of the USA over
the EU in innovation is due to low research efficiency in the EU. In accord
with some previous studies, our results show that the European Commission's
ongoing claims about the excellence of EU research are based on a wrong
diagnosis. The EU must focus its research policy on the improvement of its
inefficient research. Otherwise, the future of Europeans is at risk.
