On September 20, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) released the 2021 version of the Global Innovation Index. China ranked 12th, jumping two spots from 2020. The Index applauded China's progress in innovation and emphasized the significance of government decision-making and incentive measures to promote innovation.
China edges closer to the Top 10
Since 2013, China has been steadily rising in the ranking of the Global Innovation Index for nine consecutive years, with strong upward momentum.
In terms of sub-indices, from the perspective of innovation input, China's trade, competition, market scale, knowledge workers, and other two categories of indicators are in a leading position globally. Reading, mathematics, and science PISA scale scores, domestic market size, the proportion of companies providing formal training, domestic industry diversification, the average expenditure of the top three global R&D companies, average score of the top three QS universities, industrial cluster development status, percentage of total capital formation in GDP, corporate funding GERD ranked higher than other subdivision indicators. The Index shows that China has taken measures to promote industry-university-research cooperation, develop characteristic industries, and strengthen and optimize the real economy, creating a better enterprise innovation and development environment.
From the perspective of innovation output, China's advantages are concentrated in intangible assets, knowledge creation, and influence. Domestic patent and trademark applications and the proportion of creative product exports in total trade and other sub-indices are in the world's leading position. In 2021, China has made significant progress in the Index of knowledge dissemination, especially the segmented Index of the proportion of intellectual property income in total trade, which shows that China is gradually transforming from a large country of intellectual property introduction to a large country of intellectual property creation.
Global innovation showed greater resilience
According to the Index, Switzerland ranked first for the 11th consecutive year. Sweden, the United States, the United Kingdom, and South Korea ranked second to fifth; China ranked 12th, ranking first among middle-income economies, surpassing developed economies such as Japan, Israel, and Canada. South Korea rose from 10th in 2020 to 5th in 2021, with an apparent upward trend. The rank of middle-income economies such as Turkey (41st), Vietnam (44th), and India (46th) has risen significantly in the past ten years, and it is changing the global innovation landscape.
"This year's Global Innovation Index shows us that in spite of the massive impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on lives and livelihoods, many sectors have shown remarkable resilience – especially those that have embraced digitalization, technology and innovation", said WIPO Director General Daren Tang. "As the world looks to rebuild from the pandemic, we know that innovation is integral to overcoming the common challenges that we face and to constructing a better future. The Global Innovation Index is a unique tool to guide policy-makers and businesses in charting plans to ensure that we emerge stronger from the pandemic."
In the ranking of top science and technology clusters globally, Japan's Tokyo-Yokohama area, China's Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou area, Beijing, Seoul, and the United States San Jose-San Francisco area rank in the top five. Compared with last year, the ranking of Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou (No. 2) remains unchanged, while Beijing (No. 3), Shanghai (No. 8), Nanjing (No. 18), Hangzhou (No. 21), etc. all have increased in rankings, and the growth is noticeable.
Since the release of the "Global Innovation Index" in 2007, it has now become a vane for measuring innovation and the cornerstone for governments to make economic decisions. Governments are systematically analyzing the annual Index and formulating countermeasures to improve their performance.
