PH drops 10 places in global innovation rankings

The Philippines dropped 10 notches in the Global Innovation Index (GII) 2014, now ranking the 100th most innovative economy in the world out of 143 economies surveyed this year.

Based on the results of the GII 2014, the Philippines’ scores and rankings declined in five of the seven main indicators, namely human capital and research, infrastructure, business sophistication, knowledge and technology outputs, and creative outputs.

The country, however, managed to advance its rankings under institutions and market sophistication.

The Global Innovation Index is an annual publication of a composite indicator that ranks countries/economies in terms of their enabling environment to innovation and their innovation outputs.

It is published by Cornell University, INSEAD and the World Intellectual Property Organization and covered 143 countries this year.

This index recognizes the “key role of innovation as a driver of economic growth and prosperity, and the need for a broad horizontal vision of innovation applicable to developed and emerging economies.”

Amid the documented slowdown in the growth of global research and development, the theme of the GII 2014 is “The Human Factor in Innovation,” exploring the role of human capital in the innovation process and underlining the growing interest that firms and governments have shown in identifying and energizing creative individuals and teams.

The top five countries in the GII 2014 are Switzerland, United Kingdom, Sweden, Finland and the Netherlands.

Rounding up the Top 10 are the United States, Singapore, Denmark, Luxembourg and Hong Kong.

“These GII leaders have created well-linked innovation ecosystems, where investments in human capital combined with strong innovation infrastructures contribute to high levels of creativity,” WIPO said in a statement.

“In particular, the top 25 countries in the GII consistently score high in most indicators and have strengths in areas such as innovation infrastructure, including information and communication technologies; business sophistication such as knowledge workers, innovation linkages, and knowledge absorption; and innovation outputs such as creative goods and services and online creativity,” it added.

According to the GII 2014, the Philippines scored 29.9 out of 100, based on 81 indicators that gauged the innovation capabilities and policy performances of 143 nations. Last year, the country scored 31.18 out of 100.

The Philippines showed significant improvements in the Institutions indicator as its ranking rose 28 notches to 108th place from a previous rank of 128th in the GII 2013; Market sophistication, which measures the ease of getting credit, ease of protecting investors, market capitalization and trade and competition, slightly improved at 93rd place from 95th last year.