|  NEWS

Switzerland has ranked as the world’s most innovative country on the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Global Innovation Index (GII), UN News reports. 

The countries placing after Switzerland were Sweden, the United States, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. 

Meanwhile, India was the country that advanced the most from the previous year, climbing by five spots for fifty-second. 

The index has been shared annually for the last 12 years and is created with the intention of helping policy makers understand innovation more, which WIPO has referred to as a “main driver of economic and social development”.

The report takes 80 indicators into account, such as the level of Research and Development investment as well as mobile-phone app creations. 

This year’s index showed that innovation is “blossoming”, despite the current global economic slowdown. Asia excelled particularly, although trade tensions risked dampening the positive result. 

WIPO Director General, Francis Gurry, said: “The Index shows us that countries that prioritize innovation in their policies have seen significant increases in their rankings.

“The rise in the GII by economic powerhouses like China and India has transformed the geography of innovation, and this reflects deliberate policy action to promote innovation”.

The findings for this year’s index indicated that worryingly, public expenditure on research and development is decreasing in high-income countries. Additionally, rising economic protectionism could result in slowing innovation productivity. The main focus of the index this time round was medical innovation, observing ways in which Artificial Intelligence (AI), genomics, and mobile-phone based health applications will impact healthcare. 

 

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