Switzerland tops Innovation Innovation Index while gaps persist in the world

7 years ago - Published in Finance, Fundamental Analysis

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.

It is the seventh consecutive year that the Alpine country leads the rankings, "Switzerland is the gold medallist once again, and that's seven years running, so that's quite an outstanding performance," Francis Gurry, head of the UN World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), told a news conference. And he added 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.

High-income economies took 24 of the top 25 spots, with China the exception at 22. In 2016, China became the first-ever middle income economy in the top 25.

However, there is still a gap in “innovative capacity” between developed and developing nations and “lacklustre growth rates” for research and development activities—at the government and corporate levels, the report found.

According to the index, a group of middle and lower-income economies performed significantly better on innovation than their current level of development would predict.
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.