Today, many governments are putting innovation at the centre of their growth strategies. There is awareness that the definition of innovation has broadened— it is no longer restricted to R&D laboratories and to published scientific papers. Innovation is more general and horizontal in nature, and includes social innovations, business model innovations and innovation in the creative sectors. Thus recognizing and celebrating innovation is seen as critical to inspire people—especially the next generation of entrepreneurs and innovators.
Policies to promote innovation lay the foundation for future growth, productivity improvements and better jobs. Opportunities for new sources of innovation-based growth abound in fields such as education, the environment, energy, food, health, information technologies, transport and others. The challenge from a policy perspective is for nations to optimize the interplay of institutions and the interactive processes in the creation, application, and diffusion of knowledge, human capital, and technology.
Success in innovation requires a holistic approach, which is the approach taken by the Global Innovation Index, launched in Geneva on July 1st, 2013.
The above chart, for example, plots GII scores against GDP per capita in PPP$. The GII 2013 shows a striking pattern of stability among Innovation Leaders. While individual countries swap their respective rankings within the top 10 or top 25, not a single country moved in or out of such groups in 2013.
Among the encouraging signs identified by GII 2013, 18 Innovation Learners are outperforming other countries in their respective income groups. All of them demonstrate rising levels of innovation compared with their peers. Even if progress is not uniform, this is a result of tackling the formulation of a good policy-mix on all meaningful fronts: institutions, skills, infrastructures, integration to global markets and linkages with the business community.
The GII blog will be sharing dissemination efforts around the GII results. Download the slides prepared for the global launch in Geneva, July 1st, 2013, which include the above chart and more, here.
Daniela Benavente, GII Lead Researcher and Project Manager, INSEAD
Soumitra Dutta, Anne and Elmer Lindseth Dean, Professor of Management, Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University
Bruno Lanvin, Executive Director, INSEAD European Competitiveness Initiative
Sacha Wunsch-Vincent, Senior Economist, Economics and Statistics Division, WIPO