According to the 2019 edition of the Global Innovation Index (GII), Switzerland is the world’s most-innovative country followed by Sweden, the United States of America (U.S.), the Netherlands and the United Kingdom (U.K.).
The annual Index, which has been published for the last 12 years by WIPO, and a number of partners, is designed to help policy makers better understand innovation activity
The Index also identified India, South Africa, Chile, Israel and Singapore, with China, Viet Nam and Rwanda as topping their income groups.
Top 20 in Global Ranking
- Switzerland (Number 1 in 2018)
- Sweden (3)
- United States of America (6)
- The Netherlands (2)
- United Kingdom (4)
- Finland (7)
- Denmark (8)
- Singapore (5)
- Germany (9)
- Israel (11)
- Korea, Republic of (12)
- Ireland (10)
- Hong Kong (China) (14)
- China (17)
- Japan (13)
- France (16)
- Canada (18)
- Luxemburg (15)
- Norway (19)
- Iceland (23)
Key Findings from the Report
- The global landscape of science, innovation, and technology has undergone important shifts over the last decades. Middle-income economies, especially in Asia, are increasingly contributing to global research and development (R&D) and international patenting rates via WIPO’s International Patent System;
- The GII 2019 shows that public R&D expenditures – particularly in some high-income economies – are growing slowly or not at all. This raises concerns given the public sector’s central role in funding basic R&D and blue-sky research, which are key to future innovations;
- Increased protectionism poses risks. If left uncontained, it will lead to a slowdown of growth in innovation productivity and diffusion across the globe;
- Innovation inputs and outputs are still concentrated in very few economies. Divides also persist in how effectively economies obtain return on their innovation investments. Some economies achieve more with less;
- Most top science and technology clusters are in the U.S., China, and Germany, whlie Brazil, India, Iran, the Russian Federation, and Turkey also feature in the top 100 list. The top five clusters: Tokyo-Yokohama (Japan); Shenzhen-Hong Kong, China (China); Seoul (Republic of Korea); Beijing (China); San Jose-San Francisco (U.S.).
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