Switzerland, Sweden, and US have world’s most innovative economies, says UN agency

By Peter Kenny

GENEVA (AA) - Switzerland, Sweden, the US, Singapore, and Britain have the world’s most innovative economies, while China, Türkiye, India, Vietnam, and the Philippines are the fastest “10-year climbers,” the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) said Thursday.

Daren Tang, the group’s head, told journalists at an online press conference that its Global Innovation Index 2024 “shows a softening in venture capital activity, R&D funding, and other investment indicators.”

“In 2023, we saw a decline in R&D expenditures, a reduction in scientific publications, and a scaling back of venture capital investments to pre-pandemic levels,” said Tang.

“However, technological progress remained strong in 2023, particularly in health-related fields like genome sequencing, as well as in computing power and electric batteries.”

On Türkiye, the report says it "continues to forge ahead, gaining two ranks" in the innovation index.

"It also takes the 3rd position among the upper middle-income group. Türkiye stands out in various areas: it ranks 1st globally in trademarks and industrial designs, and 9th in intangible asset intensity – all showing an improvement this year," the report added.

The 17th edition of the index is, according to WIPO, a world benchmark resource mapping global innovation trends to guide governments, business leaders, and others in unleashing human ingenuity to better lives and deal with challenges such as climate change.

According to the organization, the 2024 index identifies a significant softening in leading indicators of future innovative activity, including a reversal of the 2020-2022 boom in innovation investments.

There were higher interest rates, venture capital funding falling by about 40% in 2023, and growth expenditures slipped in research and development, while international patent filings and scientific publications also fell.

- Technology adoption

“Technology adoption also deepened, especially in 5G, robotics, and electric vehicles,” said Tang.

This year’s Global Innovation Index “also reveals positive trends in key indicators, including a decline in global poverty and rises in labor productivity and life expectancy.”

The results of the global top 100 science and technology (S&T) clusters show that the world’s five most significant clusters are all located in East Asia.

Tokyo-Yokohama in Japan is the biggest S&T cluster globally, while Cambridge in the United Kingdom is the most S&T-intensive cluster relative to population density.

According to WIPO, technology continues progressing rapidly, particularly in health-related fields and computing power.

Technology adoption is also growing, particularly in 5G (fifth generation cellular networks) – with nearly a 25% increase in coverage in 2022, robotics, and electric vehicles (EVs).

The global stock of EVs rose 54% in 2022.

However, the progress in green technologies in the last year has been slower than the average for the decade, highlighting the difficulty in reducing the energy consumption of supercomputers and maintaining the decrease in electric battery prices, according to the WIPO report.