Global Innovation Index 2022

In News

Recently, the annual report released by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) showed, India is among the top 40, making remarkable progress in the global innovation index ranking for the first time.

Key Findings

• India is the innovation leader in the lower middle-income group. 
• It continues to lead the world in ICT services exports and holds top rankings in other indicators, including:
  • Venture capital receipt value, 
  • Finance for startups and scaleups, 
  • Graduates in science and engineering, 
  • Labour productivity growth 
  • Domestic industry diversification.
• Performance in 2020: 
  • Earlier in 2020, India entered into the top 50 in 2020 and found a place in the top 40 this year.
• Impact of COVID 19: 
  • Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the research and development (R&D) and other investments that drive worldwide innovative activity continued to boom in 2021, however challenges are emerging in translating innovation investments into impact.
• Post pandemic: 
  • Innovation is at a crossroads as we emerge from the pandemic. 
  • While innovation investments surged in 2020 and 2021, the outlook for 2022 is clouded not just by global uncertainties but continued underperformance in innovation-driven productivity. 
  • So there is a need to pay more attention to not just investing in innovation, but how it translates into economic and social impact. 
  • Quality and value will become as critical to success as quantity and scale.
• Global Trend:
  • World’s most-innovative economies: Switzerland, the United States, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.
  • Emerging economies are showing consistently strong performance, with India jumping to the 40th position while Turkey is placed at the 37th position.

Global Innovation Index (GII)

• Origin: 
  • The Global Innovation Index (GII) project was launched by Professor Soumitra Dutta in 2007 during his tenure at INSEAD. 
• Goal:
  • To find and determine metrics and methods that could capture a picture of innovation in society that is as complete as possible. 
• Published by: 
  • It is published by WIPO, in partnership with the Portulans Institute and with the support of its corporate partners including the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), the Brazilian National Confederation of Industry (CNI), Ecopetrol (Colombia), and the Turkish Exporters Assembly (TIM).
  • It was the 15th edition this year.
• Criteria to measure innovation:
  • It covers institutions, human capital and research, infrastructure, credit, investment, linkages, creation, absorption and diffusion of knowledge, and creative outputs.
• Three measures are calculated:
  • Innovation Input Sub-Index: Five input pillars capture elements of the economy that enable and facilitate innovative activities.
  • Innovation Output Sub-Index: Innovation outputs are the result of innovative activities within the economy. Although the Output Sub-Index includes only two pillars, it carries the same weight as the Input Sub-Index in calculating the overall GII scores.
  • The overall GII score is the average of the Input and Output Sub-Indices, on which the GII economy rankings are then produced.

Image Courtesy: GII 

Challenges to innovation in India

• Academia – Industry Gap:
  • Steps like the Atal Innovation Mission and collaboration with institutions in countries like Switzerland and the UK are proving helpful but still there is a long way to go before we completely bridge the gap.
  • The research done in universities is not linked with the industry or real-world problems.
• Spending on R&D: 
  • Spending on Research and Development is another sector where India lags behind. 
• Infrastructure:
  • This is an area in which India lacks the most. 
  • Good and efficient infrastructure can only be made available when the organizers know the needs of the innovators and scientists. 

Way Ahead

• Taking all the stakeholders on board:
  • Whether creating an innovative solution for rural India or a solution to a city’s waste management crisis, every stakeholder needs to be represented appropriately. 
• Interdisciplinary and international collaborations are the need of the hour, to ensure maximum impact and outcome.
• Promoting Best Practices: The states that have consistently shown strong performance and the areas of strength for various states need to be critically analysed and the knowledge of the best practices needs to be disseminated to promote innovation.
• Focus on Challenges: The critical challenges faced by the low performing states and the areas of weaknesses of various states need to be identified to promote economic well being, by fostering innovation in the region.

Source: ET