Ireland has been ranked as one of the best countries in Europe for adopting key measures that can help start-ups to thrive.

A new study from the European Digital Forum (EDF) places Ireland in fourth place behind the Netherlands, Italy and the UK for adoption of recommendations contained in the think tank's Start-up Manifesto.

This is a 14-page crowdsourced roadmap containing 22 action points that countries should act on to develop a better start-up ecosystem.

The plan was developed in 2013, and is supported by nine of Europe’s most successful tech entrepreneurs.

The 2016 Start-up Nation Scoreboard gives Ireland an overall ranking of 72 per cent. This compares with the overall winner, the Netherlands, on 85 per cent, and the European Union average of 60 per cent.

Overall, 12 member states are above the EU average showing start-up policies are improving in these particular countries.

Six priority areas

Across the six priority areas established by the

EDF

, Ireland ranked joint first for thought leadership, joint second for better access to capital, seventh for skills and education, joint eighth for data policy and privacy, joint ninth for its institutional framework and 14th for access to talent.

“Ireland’s start-up ecosystem seems to be at a phase of network growth where individual pockets of excellence are increasing in density and starting to connect with each other nationally,” the study authors said.

“Arguably, this process could be accelerated by further adoption of the triple-helix model – deepening university, business and government collaboration with high- growth start-ups.”