Burundi, the Philippines and North Macedonia are all new entrants to the Global Innovation Index 2019's “innovation achievers” chart, outperforming on innovation compared to the size of their economies. This article is part of a series about the power of innovation to solve social and economic challenges. Stories and statistics are drawn from the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Global Innovation Index 2019.
When it comes to innovation, most countries perform as expected, based on their level of development. But some break away to strongly outperform expectations, becoming “innovation achievers”.
The Global Innovation Index has compared GDP with innovation achievements to reveal a group of surprisingly hard-hitting innovation nations.
Who’s punching above their weight in 2019?
A total of 18 economies outperform on innovation relative to their GDP. New entrants to the innovation achievers group are Burundi, North Macedonia, and the Philippines, with the latter two nations debuting as innovation achievers. South Africa, who joined the group of achievers for the first time last year, remains an achiever this year.
The Global Innovation Index assesses innovation performance based on metrics from an array of dimensions, including investment in education and research, political stability and business and market sophistication.
The Philippines scores above average in almost all innovation dimensions, relative to its lower middle-income peers. It shows remarkable performance in Knowledge diffusion and Knowledge absorption, not only compared to its income group and geographic region, but in comparison with all other economies assessed in the Global Innovation Index 2019.
Other big hitters in 2019 include Armenia, Ukraine, Mongolia, Thailand, Montenegro, Georgia, Costa Rica and Burundi.
African achievers
As in previous years, Africa shines in terms of innovation relative to level of development. Six of the innovation achievers – the largest group of nations from one region – are from the Sub-Saharan Africa region.
Importantly, Kenya, Rwanda, Mozambique, Malawi, and Madagascar stand out for being innovation achievers at least three times in the previous eight years. Rwanda scores above average in the low-income group in all innovation dimensions, with the exception of Knowledge and technology outputs.
Veteran innovation achievers
Viet Nam has been an innovation achiever for nine consecutive years, holding that record jointly with India, Republic of Moldova, and Kenya. Viet Nam scores above average in all the dimensions measured in the Global Innovation Index 2019, compared to the lower middle-income group as a whole. In fact, it has an overall innovation performance comparable with the top economies in the upper middle-income group.
The Global Innovation Index 2019 is the result of a collaboration between Cornell University, INSEAD, and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) as co-publishers, and their Knowledge Partners, Confederation of Indian Industry, Dassault Systèmes, SEBRAE, Brazilian Micro and Small Industry Support Services, and Brazilian Confederation of Industry.
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