Innovation Index

What would life be without lists, I would be bored, life would be colorless. It was only time before innovation got its lists, or rather a list called the Global Innovation Index.

The list, in its 7th edition, is compiled by Cornell University, WIPO, the World Intellectual Property Organization and INSEAD, which according to its own words is “one of the world’s leading and largest graduate business schools.” This innovation triad uses 81 indicators to classify the 143 countries on its list. There are five main pillars these 81 indicators rest on;

1. Institutions
2. Human capital and research
3. Infrastructure
4. Market sophistication, and
5. Business sophistication.

And there are two sub categories;

6.   Knowledge and technology outputs and
7.   Creative outputs.

By now you are probably feverishly waiting for me to tell you who is numero uno, number one, the Big Cheese… yes here is the winner. The number one country for innovation in the world since 2011 is the one and only…. Switzerland, that country that recently put a basic income referendum on the ballot to pay everyone 2800 dollars a month for just being alive.

The runner up was ol’ Blighty, the United Kingdom, Britannia may not rule the waves, but they do invent useful things like the Internet, and the bronze medal goes to that multilingual, highly educated, free health care, paid parental maternity leave paradise, occasionally known to our more extreme free market brethren as crypto communists, but to fair-minded folks as the progressive country of Sweden.

Right behind them is their Finnish cousins, a people that have never been known to laugh and with a language so obscure no-one is quite sure where it came from but still manage to produce companies like Nokia.

The Netherlands come fifth, where for some reason that baffles Wall Street types, the government pays everyone $3000 to take a vacation as required by law, so they can come back refreshed and rested.

Coming sixth is the US.  What is interesting about this list is that the innovation index matches countries with the most democratic and progressive policies.

This explains why the Chinese comes 29th, four places below Malta, and Iran clocks in at number 120.  The good news is that certain African countries are making large strides. One would think from listening to the news that all is war, corruption and kidnapping in Africa, but Mauritius came in 40th and Kenya 85th. Russia by comparison came in 49th just below Thailand.

If you are interested in finding out more here is a link to the list.

And there is an analysis and more here.

Now it’s time to turn my attention to my next list the World Press Freedom Index, let’s see numero uno, Finland, then the Netherlands and Norway… we must be somewhere around here… there we are, the land of the free and the first amendment is 46th, five places below Botswana and just above Haiti. Oh well.

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Peter Doyle is an award winning media marketing, news and documentary producer using rich media to accelerate innovation and commercialization. Check me out at https://www.linkedin.com/in/peterjdoyle