The Global Innovation Race

(December 2022) From job creation and public health to national security and industrial competitiveness, innovations plays a vital role in a country’s socio-economic development and International competitiveness, impacting nearly every corner of society—either directly or indirectly.

• According to the Global Innovation Index Project, China has performed the most progress in innovation ecosystem development among over 200 countries over the last decade.
• China, Iran, South Korea, Turkey and France were the only five countries that demonstrated the outpacing growth in domestic innovation capabilities relative to the US.
• China's progress in building up its innovation system is based on outpacing growth in expenditure on research and development.  In 2018 China increased R&D expenditure over twenty five times compared to 1996, almost eliminating R&D expenditure gap with the US.

The overall Global Innovation Index ranking is based on 81 indicators grouped into two sub-indices that are both equally important in presenting a complete picture of innovation; the Innovation Input Sub-Index and the Innovation Output Sub-Index. Hence, three indices 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 produced.