Global Innovation Index 2012 launched

On July 3, the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) launched 2012 Global Innovation Index (GII) in Geneva, which showed the first three countries were still Switzerland, Sweden and Singapore. Hong Kong ranked the eighth while Mainland ranked the 34th. GII was firstly released by INSEAD in 2007 and it is the first time for INSEAD to launch GII together with WIPO.

At the press release, WIPO Director-General Francis Gurry said, “ the overall result covered 141 most important and typical countries and economies in the world. Our data were widely collected and we had earnestly verified the reasonableness and accuracy of the data with the view of providing the most wide and best analysis. And the data we collected are always different.”

Among the first ten countries and regions, 7 were from Europe and 2 were from Asia, i.e. Singapore and Hong Kong of China. The United States took the tenth position. Compared with last year, Hong Kong and the United States regressed while Ireland replaced Canada and entered into the first ten. According to the report, Canada weakened in innovation investment and output while the United States comparatively lacked in education, human resource and innovation output.

The report pointed out the innovative leaders in different regions on the analysis of innovative ability and fruits of the 141 countries and regions. In terms of Innovation Efficiency, China ranked the first, following by India, Moldova and Malta. The report particularly showed concerns to the innovative abilities of bricks countries, i.e. Brazil, Russia, India and China. Gurry said that bricks countries should continue to invest more in basic fields in order to dig their potentials.