Switzerland Tops Global Innovation Index 2017; Attention To Gap Needed

Switzerland, Sweden, the Netherlands, the United States and the United Kingdom are the top five global innovative economies, according to the Global Innovation Index 2017, released today.

“Innovation Feeding the World” is the theme of the Global Innovation Index 2017 (GII 2017), the tenth edition of the index, which was presented today at a press briefing at the United Nations in Geneva. The Global Innovation Index 2017 (GII 2017) is co-published by the Cornell University, the European Institute for Business Administration (INSEAD) and the World Intellectual Property Organization.

(l-r) Dutta, Gurry, and Lanvin

It is the seventh consecutive year that Switzerland leads the rankings, Francis Gurry, director general of WIPO, told the briefing, adding that this is “quite an outstanding performance.” Bruno Lanvin, INSEAD executive director for Global Indices, called Switzerland’s performance “quite remarkable,” and said, “We continue to learn from the example of Switzerland.”

He said there is stability at the top of the ranking with Europe dominating the top. The ranking shows that there is a continued stability in the top 20 and the top 25, Gurry said. There have been interesting changes between places 30 and 50 on the ranking, Lanvin added.

Global Innovation Index

The Global Innovation Index measures essentially the innovation capacity and performance of countries across the world, Gurry said. Innovation is the “main driver of economic growth,” Gurry added. “Innovation is a positive sum game,” Lanvin said, replying to a question from Intellectual Property Watch. Countries benefit from innovation progress made in another country, he said.

Soumitra Dutta, dean of Cornell Business School, said there is no other comparable base of data across countries for a period of 10 years. Several countries have used the global innovation index as a guide for the national investment policies, Dutta added.

The GII 2017 surveyed 127 countries which represent together 92.5% of the world’s population and 97.6% of the GDP of the world in current US dollars. There are 81 data tables for indicators from more than 30 international public and private sources, including 57 that are hard data, 19 composite indicators and 5 survey questions, according to the GII 2017 report.

The GII 2017 presents a new approach towards the identification and ranking of the largest clusters of inventive activity in the world by indicating the highest density of investors listed in international patent applications, the so-called “invention hotspots,” the report states.

Innovation Feeding the World

Agriculture is likely going to experience substantial changes through innovation in recent years, Gurry said.

GII 2017 knowledge partners

Innovation can be key to maintaining the productivity growth required to meet the rising global demand and increased competition for limited natural resources, according to the report. The climate change creates challenges for the agriculture and food sector, the report adds.

“We are already witnessing the rapid, worldwide emergence of ‘digital agriculture,’ which includes drones, satellite-based sensors and field robotics,” Lanvin said in the release. But digital agriculture will not solve the hunger program in the world, Lanvin added. Smart agriculture will make the difference, according to him.

“Now there is an urgent need for ‘smart agriculture’ to optimize supply and distribution chains and foster creative new business models that minimize pressure on land, energy and other natural resources – while addressing the needs of the world’s poorest,” Lanvin said in a press release.

Innovation in Different Regions

Dutta said that Asia will start emerging as “a dominant home for innovation” in the years ahead.

China, Japan and Korea are “innovation powers,” the report states. Japan belongs to the top 10 global nations for “research and development, information and communication technologies, trade, competition, market scale, knowledge absorption, creation, and diffusion,” according to the report.

Several Asian economies, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and Viet Nam, actively work on the improvement of their “innovation ecosystems,” according to the report. This Asian group of economies achieved a high ranking in important indicators, including indicators related to education, R&D, productivity growth and high-tech exports, the report says.

Singapore is the top performer in most of the indicators within the Association of East Asian Nations (ASEAN), the reports states.

The report says that apart from China – a middle-income economy in 22^nd place – the top 25 countries are all high-income economies. The high scores of China are in business sophistication and knowledge and technology outputs, according to the report.

The strengths of the United States and Canada are sophisticated financial markets and venture capital activity. High-quality universities, global R&D firms, quality of scientific publications, software spending and the state of innovation clusters are the other strengths of the United States, according to the report.

European countries are 8 of the top 10 and 15 of the top 25 in the index. Human capital and research, infrastructure and business sophistication are the strengths of Europe, the report states.

There has not been much improvement in the ranking of Latin America and the Caribbean relative to other regions in the recent years. No country of the region shows “any innovation outperformance relative to its level of development,” according to the report. The strengths of the largest economies in Latin America and the Caribbean, that is, Chile, Mexico, Brazil and Argentina, are institutions, infrastructure, and business sophistication, according to the report.

Seventeen economies, including middle and lower-income countries do significantly better on innovation than what their current level of development would predict, according to the report. India, Kenya and Viet Nam belong to these countries.

Innovation Gap

Dutta said that the innovation gap across the world is “not deniable” and “not decreasing.” Developing countries have to focus on innovation policy and strategies to close the gap, he added. He told the press that there have been some hopeful signs of more global innovation by countries like China and India that have been moving up “dramatically.”

Lanvin said that the innovation divide deserves all of our attention. If innovation does not touch the majority of the people on the planet, “it is not playing the full role it could play,” Lanvin added.

Elise De Geyter is an intern at Intellectual Property Watch and a candidate for the LLM Intellectual Property and Technology Law at the National University of Singapore (class 2017).

Image Credits: William New, Lourdes Casanova, Elise De Geyter