Switzerland has topped the list every year since 2011. Switzerland is the gold medalist once again, and that's seven years running, so that's quite an outstanding performance," Francis Gurry, head of the U.N. World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), told a news conference.
According to the UN agency, rich countries continue to dominate global innovation in terms of most new products and services, with Switzerland at the top for the seventh year running and high-income economies taking 24 of the top 25 spots – China is the exception at 22, moving up three places in the last 12 months.
The Global Innovation Index is produced jointly by WIPO and two business schools - INSEAD and the SC Johnson College of Business at Cornell University, and seeks to shed light on countries' competitiveness based on 81 indicators.
WIPO points out that innovation is key to sustaining the productivity growth required to meet the rising demand and to helping enhance the networks that integrate the sustainable food production, processing, distribution, consumption and waste management known as food systems.
A total of 17 economies comprise the 'innovation achievers' this year, with nine from the Sub-Saharan Africa region and three from Eastern Europe. Key findings show the rise of India as an emerging innovation centre in Asia, high innovation performance in Sub-Saharan Africa, showing particular strengths in institutions, infrastructure and business sophistication.
A group of Asian economies dubbed by WIPO as the "new Asian tigers" who are actively working to improve their innovation ecosystems and rank high in a number of important indicators related to education, productivity growth and high-tech exports, among others.
The theme of the GII 2017, 'Innovation Feeding the World,' carried out in agriculture and food systems in addition to adapting to climate change they face an enormous rise in global demand and increased competition for limited natural resources. The report underlines that innovation is key to sustaining the necessary productivity growth to help enhance networks that integrate the sustainable food production, processing, distribution, consumption, and waste management known as food systems.
