Lessons From Europe on Technological Innovation and Progress

When I embarked on the Marshall Memorial Fellowship in September 2025, I imagined I was going to Europe to study innovation policy. I expected to meet policymakers, visit incubators, and compare how different cities balance growth, inclusion, and governance. And I did all of that. But what I encountered was a redefinition of progress.

My journey took me to three cities—Budapest, Zagreb, and Bilbao, each grappling with the challenges of the information age in distinct ways.

Budapest: Innovation Amid Political Illiberalism

Budapest, a city where intellectual brilliance coexists uneasily with political control, was my first stop.

My conversations there centered on Hungary’s evolving innovation strategy. László Bodis, the deputy state secretary for innovation and culture (and CEO of the Hungarian Innovation Agency) spoke with quiet conviction about an ambitious national effort to transform his country from one known for scientific prowess into one capable of commercializing that science. He described four pillars for change: education, institutional structures for technology transfer, tax and regulatory reform, and access to capital.

The reform that surprised me most was the Hungarian Startup University Program. Launched five years ago, it now reaches over 20,000 students at 30 universities. It offers a unified, credit-bearing curriculum that introduces students to startup principles, business validation, and fundraising, a rarity in Hungary’s academic tradition. It even extends to high schools and doctorate programs, creating a seamless pipeline from curiosity to commercialization.

It is one of the world’s few national programs that deliberately links high schoolers, undergraduates, and doctoral researchers in a single innovation curriculum.

I found this fascinating due to its scale and location. Hungary is often described as an illiberal democracy, criticized for curbing press freedom and judicial independence. Yet, within this system, technocrats are quietly building one of Europe’s most comprehensive innovation infrastructures. Hungary’s example suggests that progress does not always wear democratic clothes and that policy merit can coexist with political contradiction.

That realization humbled me. Governments widely criticized for their democratic record, such as Hungary or China, can produce capable technocrats and progressive initiatives. I left Budapest thinking about what it means to work for good within imperfect systems and how often the value of pragmatic reformers working inside them is overlooked.

Zagreb: Transparency as a Democratic Virtue

If Budapest challenged my ideas about leadership, Zagreb renewed my faith in what local governments can achieve when trust becomes policy.

Croatia’s capital is rebuilding itself after decades of post-socialist stagnation and a devastating 2020 earthquake. What caught my attention was not a gleaming smart-city initiative or startup campus, but a simple website, iTransparentnost.zagreb.hr.

On this platform, every bank transaction made by the city of Zagreb—every payment to vendors, individuals, or institutions since 2024—is publicly disclosed. You can search by name, amount, or date, and download the data for analysis. It is one of the world’s few municipal portals that offers in-depth visibility into a city’s bank transactions. Most governments talk about open data, but Zagreb practices radical transparency.

Behind this is a small team led by Dražen Lučanin, a pragmatic technologist who aspires to make Zagreb a smart city. Complementary reforms, such as participatory budgeting and the capital’s Smart City Hub, aim to turn citizens from passive recipients into co-creators of governance. Zagreb is, for example, implementing an e-service for budgeting that allows citizens to propose projects and vote on them. The city then selects the most promising that have been approved. It’s messy and imperfect but democratic.

What struck me most was that the transparency portal and the participatory budgets sit within the government of a mayor who treats public service as a moral act.

That mayor, Tomislav Tomašević, radiates with purpose. He is socially liberal, pragmatic, and determined to make Zagreb a city of accountability. His agenda combines fiscal discipline with social compassion by offering subsidized childcare, public transportation, immigrant integration, and kindergartens in every housing block. His is a vision of public leadership rooted in service to people.

Zagreb renewed my belief in the power of city-level leadership to model reform, even when national coordination lags.

Bilbao: Innovation Rooted in Community

Bilbao felt different because it doesn’t just innovate. It remembers. The Basque country’s transformation from industrial collapse to global exemplar of urban renewal is well documented but being there revealed the emotional infrastructure behind that success: community.

The most compelling example came from the Athletic Club Bilbao Foundation. The football club treats sport not merely as entertainment, but as an instrument of community solidarity. Its programs reach prisoners, patients in mental health institutions, immigrant children and at-risk youth, embodying the idea that success means belonging, not just winning. Even the club’s player policy—fielding only athletes with Basque roots—reflects a philosophy of identity without exclusion.

Bilbao also offered a striking model of socialized capitalism through the BBK Foundation, which owns a majority stake in Kutxabank, a for-profit bank. The foundation channels the bank’s profits into social, cultural, and environmental projects, just as the Novo Nordisk Foundation does.

And then there is Fair Saturday Movement. Born in Bilbao from the vision of a former business executive who, having witnessed the relentless churn of Black Friday, asked a simple question: What if consumer frenzy could give way to culture, connection, and care?

On the day after Black Friday, the city breathes differently. Streets, squares, and theaters become spaces of gathering where artists perform, families linger, and neighbors meet. Fair Saturday is a festival not of shopping but of reflection. Its focus is not on acquisition but on connection.

Bilbao reminded me that sustainable innovation depends not only on digital infrastructure or venture capital but also on community.

Relearning Progress

Before this fellowship, I viewed innovation primarily as a function of resources and institutions. I now understand it as deeply human and ethical. Innovation is rooted in courage, values, and imagination.

In Budapest, Zagreb, and Bilbao, I internalized three enduring lessons. First, innovation depends on public leadership that treats progress as a civic mission, not a market trend. Leadership sets the tone and trajectory of reform. Second, innovation ecosystems reflect institutional culture. There are no universal models, only context-sensitive strategies shaped by political and social realities. Third, true innovation must expand opportunity, not just output, and merge technical excellence with moral purpose.

When I serve in public office one day, I hope to champion Zagreb’s transparency, Budapest’s generational innovation literacy, and Bilbao’s model of civic capitalism.

Philip Essienyi is a 2025 Marshall Memorial Fellow. The views expressed herein are reflections from his experience in the fellowship.