Switzerland remains a global innovation leader

Switzerland has successfully defended top spot in the Global Innovation Index, further details of which can be found in a press release issued by Wipo, the World Intellectual Property Organization. As was the case in the previous year, the places immediately behind Switzerland are again occupied by Sweden, the USA and the UK. Having previously taken 10th place, South Korea has risen five places to claim 5th spot. However, Germany fell one place to 10th in this year’s rankings, although France (12th up to 11th) and Austria (19th up to 18th) both recorded an improvement of one place respectively.

Global Innovation Index 2021

Despite the coronavirus crisis, global innovation investments have proved to be highly resilient, Wipo writes in the press release. However, industry-related differences have been observed over the past year. In this respect, companies operating in the fields of IT and electronics as well as pharma and biotechnology firms have scaled-up their investment activities, while companies from sectors including tourism have evidently been impacted by the crisis to a greater extent.

Switzerland topped not only the overall rankings but also the assessment for Europe and high-income countries. In the overall rankings, Switzerland took top spot for the eleventh year in succession, with this excellent record primarily attributable to the country’s huge number of patents. In the Knowledge and Technology Output category, Switzerland is again ranked first on a global basis in addition to taking second place for both the Creative Output and Infrastructure categories. However, in terms of Institutions, Switzerland ranks down in 13th place. In the current edition of the index, Switzerland’s strengths are noted in particular as its political framework conditions, the use of IT applications and knowledge creation. For the latter two categories here, Switzerland is again ranked first globally.

This year, Wipo produced the fourteenth edition of the Global Innovation Index in conjunction with the Portulans Institute and several other partners. For this, more than 130 countries around the world are evaluated in a process that takes into account data related to just over 80 indicators.