Bureau van Dijk and the Global Innovation Index

Thursday saw the release of this year's Global Innovation Index (GII), which ranks Switzerland, Sweden, the Netherlands, the USA and the UK as the world's top performers.

The full report, co-authored by Cornell University, INSEAD and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), also highlights the achievements of India, Kenya and Viet Nam, which are "outperforming their development-level peers".

Now in its tenth edition, the index was compiled with hard data from a range of sources, including Bureau van Dijk's private company information databases, as referenced on pages xiv and 419 of the report.

Its survey of 130 economies uses "dozens of metrics, from patent filings to education spending, providing decision-makers a high-level look at the innovative activity that increasingly drives economic and social growth".

Other key findings – encapsulated in the expandable thumbnail, right – include:

• The emergence of India as an innovation centre in Asia
• High innovation performance in Sub-Saharan Africa relative to development, its league-toppers being South Africa, Mauritius and Kenya
• An opportunity to improve innovation capacity in Latin America and the Caribbean

Top 20

Here's a snapshot of the top 20, with last year's rank in brackets.

You can find the complete set of rankings, methodology and findings in the full report.

Three minutes with Francis Gurry, WIPO Director General

"Innovation is the engine of economic growth in an increasingly knowledge-based global economy, but more investment is needed to help boost human creativity and economic output," said WIPO Director General Francis Gurry. "Innovation can help transform the current economic upswing into longer-term growth."

You can watch WIPO's short video with him here: