WIPO Releases Global Innovation Index 2024

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) has just released the Global Innovation Index (GII) 2024, which captured the innovation performance of 133 economies and revealed the world's top 100 science and technology clusters.

In terms of overall innovation performance, the top 5 remained relatively stable this year, with Switzerland ranking top for the 14th consecutive year, Sweden and the US maintaining 2nd and 3rd positions respectively, and Singapore (ranked 5th in 2023) and the UK (ranked 4th in 2023) switching the 4th and 5th positions.

For rank progression, the report found that Indonesia, Mauritius, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Brazil have climbed the most in the GII rankings over the past five years, and the highest risers over the past 10 years were China, India, Iran, Morocco, the Philippines, and Türkiye.

The GII also provided information on innovation ecosystem of individual economies, using about 80 indicators, grouped into innovation inputs and outputs. In this year's GII ranking, China moved up one place to 11th, with both innovation outputs (ranked 7th) and innovation inputs (ranked 23rd) improving from the previous year. And among the seven areas comprised in the GII, China ranked high in knowledge and technology outputs (3rd), infrastructure (5th), and business sophistication (11th).

As for the top 100 global science and technology clusters, the world's five biggest clusters were Tokyo–Yokohama (Japan), followed by Shenzhen–Hong Kong–Guangzhou (China and Hong Kong, China), Beijing (China), Seoul (Korea) and Shanghai–Suzhou (China), all located in East Asia. China, for a second consecutive year, led with the most clusters (26) in the top 100, followed by the US, with 20 clusters.

The special theme of this year's GII brought the topic of social entrepreneurship to center stage, highlighting the state of social entrepreneurship globally, delving into the role of innovation in social entrepreneurship, and offering policy recommendations for unlocking the sector's potential, with in-depth case studies and contributions by experts.

In summing up the global innovation trend, WIPO director general Mr. Daren Tang noted that "Following boom years between 2020 and 2022, R&D expenditures decelerated, the number of scientific publications fell, and venture capital investments returned to pre-pandemic levels." At the same time, apart from improvements in socio-economic impact of innovation, including a decline in global poverty and rises in labor productivity and life expectancy, he indicated that "New innovation in Digital and Deep Science continue to power progress, with significant developments in areas like genome sequencing, computer power, and electric batteries."