India Climbs 15 Spots in Global Innovation Index, Maintains Top Rank in Central and South Asia
India ranked second on innovation quality among middle-income economies, overtaking Brazil this year.
India climbed 15 spots, from 81 last year to 66 this year, on the Global Innovation Index and maintained the top spot in the Central and South Asia regions, according to the rankings released on Monday by Cornell University, INSEAD and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
Switzerland, Sweden, U.K and the U.S. led the index in 2016. This year, China joined the world’s 25 most innovative economies, becoming the first middle income country to enter the top 25 of the index in its nine editions of surveying the innovative capacity of over 100 economies. The top 25 countries on the index typically comprises of high-income countries.
India scored high on tertiary education and R&D, the quality of its universities and scientific publications, its market sophistication and information and communication technology service exports, where it ranks first in the world, according to the index.
It has made the most improvement in human capital and research, advancing 40 spots, and business sophistication where it advanced 59 spots.
“India is a good example of how policy is improving the innovation environment. In some dimensions – such as ICT services exports and creative goods exports – India is starting to excel,” said Johan Aurik, managing partner and chairman of GII’s knowledge partner AT Kearney, in the report.
India has all the ingredients needed to become a global driver of innovation including strong market potential, an excellent talent pool, and an underlying culture of frugal innovation, the report added. India ranked second on innovation quality among middle-income economies, overtaking Brazil this year
The index said that India has the ability to create a unique spot in innovation history to meet its own market requirements by using its cultural advantages of frugality and sustainability. Stressing that India’s priorities for innovation need to be in the areas of energy, water, transport, healthcare, food security and digital consumption, the index said that India should strengthen its own talent pool and leverage global talent “in these market-pull areas”.
However, India showed weakness in the business environment indicator, and in education. Ease of starting business was ranked as difficult, pupil-to-teacher ratios were too high, and tertiary inbound mobility needed improvement, said the report.
Here is a break down of where India ranks on each of the seven indicators used by the Global innovation Index:
1. Institutions received an overall ranking of 96
- Political environment: 98
- Regulatory environment: 77
- Business environment: 117
2. India ranked 63 in human capital and research
- Education: 118
- Tertiary education: 67
- Research and Development: 31
3. India ranked 87 in infrastructure
- Information and communication technologies: 86
- General infrastructure: 52
- Ecological sustainability: 109
4. India ranked 33 in market sophistication
- Credit: 78
- Investment: 30
- Trade, competition and market scale: 20
5. India ranked at 57 in business sophistication
- Knowledge workers- 86
- Innovation linkages-43
- Knowledge absorption-66
6. India ranked 43 on knowledge and technology outputs
- Knowledge creation: 57
- Knowledge impact: 48
- Knowledge diffusion: 26
7. India ranked at 94 on the creative outputs indicator
- Intangible assets: 98
- Creative goods and services: 72
- Online creativity: 101