UPSC Express

Headline : India rises in global innovation ranking

Details :

• India has jumped five places to rank 52 in the Global Innovation Index 2019 (GII).
• The GII is a global benchmark that helps policy makers better understand how to stimulate and measure innovative activity, a main driver of economic and social development.

• The latest Global Innovation index rankings were released at an event organised by the Indian Commerce Ministry and World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).
• The rankings put India at 52nd in the world.
• Switzerland is the most innovative economy, followed by Sweden, US, Netherlands and United Kingdom.
• China, which has invested heavily in research and development, moved up three positions to rank 14.
• Israel secured the 10th rank, marking the first time an economy from the Northern Africa and Western Asia region broke into the top 10.

• India improved its ranking consistently in the recent years, from 88 in 2015 to 57 in 2018 to 52 in 2019.
• India is now the most innovative economy in the Central and South Asian region.
• India will continue its efforts to breach the top 50 in the GII soon, with the ultimate aim of reaching the top 10.

• Strong information and communication technology services exports,
• Scientific publications
• Investment by its top three companies in research and development
• Quality of some of its educational institutions, including some IITs and IIMs
• The proportion of science and engineering graduates on offer globally
• State of cluster development, especially the performance of Bengaluru, New Delhi and Mumbai

• Proportion of women with advanced degrees in the workforce.
• Overall quality of education
• Access and use of information and communication technologies
• Student to teacher ratio in secondary level education

• India’s human capital (graduates in science & engineering)
• Growth rate of GDP per worker
• Exports of information and communication technology (ICT) and services
• Productivity growth
• Creative goods exports among others

• The Global Innovation Index (GII) aims to capture the multi-dimensional facets of innovation and provide the tools that can assist in tailoring policies to promote long-term output growth, improved productivity, and job growth.
• The global ranking is published by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) – a specialized agency of the United Nations – in association with Cornell University and graduate business school INSEAD.
• GII is published annually since 2007.
• It is considered a leading benchmarking tool for business executives, policy makers and others seeking insight into the state of innovation around the world. It is being used by them to evaluate progress on a continual basis.
• GII ranks 126 economies based on 80 indicators, ranging from intellectual property filing rates to R&D, mobile application creation, online creativity, computer software spending, education spending, scientific & technical publications and ease of starting business.