S’pore tops Asia, ranks 6th globally in innovation index

SINGAPORE — The Republic has maintained its top position in Asia and moved up a notch to place sixth globally in terms of innovation capabilities and results, an annual index has found.

However, despite some improvement over the years, the results that Singapore achieves compared to the resources it has that enables innovation is still lacking, according to the index.

This year’s Global Innovation Index measured innovation in 128 countries based on the country’s innovation input (elements in the national economy that enable innovation activities) and output (results of these innovation activities). The index, co-published by Cornell University, INSEAD, and the World Intellectual Property Organisation, studied seven areas, including human capital and research, infrastructure, market sophistication as well as creative outputs.

In the ranking, which is based on an average of the input and output scores, Singapore is ranked ahead Denmark (8th), Netherlands (9th), Germany (10th), Republic of Korea (11th) and Japan (16th). The top five countries are: Switzerland, Sweden, UK, USA and Finland.

Top 25 countries (Click to enlarge)

The study, however, noted that Singapore’s “main weakness” is its Innovation Efficiency Ratio, which measures how much innovation output a country gets for its inputs. The Republic ranked 78th globally in 2016, up from 100th and 110th place in 2015 and 2014, respectively.

When it comes to innovation input, Singapore ranked No 1 — a position it has maintained for the past six years — but for innovation output, it was in 20th position in 2016. For the latter category, most of Singapore’s “relative weakness” was in creative outputs, such as national feature films produced and printing and publishing output, the study said.

Co-author of this year’s Global Innovation Index (GII) Dr Bruno Lanvin told TODAY Singapore’s ranking was unique: “Such a difference (of 19 ranks) is exceptional, and not found in any other country of the GII top 10.”

Dr Lanvin noted that Singapore’s weaker performance in innovation output was worth a deeper look into. The INSEAD Executive Director for Global Indices suggested Singapore consider “leveraging on its success in specific ‘output’ areas such as high-tech and medium high-tech output, high-tech exports, or Foreign Direct Investment outflows, for which it is already No 1 in the world”.

In the input category, Singapore had a strong showing in several indicators, such as a strong political and regulatory environment, tertiary education, and the Government’s online services.

Authors of the index, who noted that the rise in ranking was driven not only by Singapore’s innovation performance but also by methodological considerations, added that the country has consistently ranked top in the South East Asia, East Asia, and Oceania region over the last six years.

Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS), meanwhile, said Singapore’s ranking is “testament to Singapore’s winning strategy of investing in innovation as a key priority, supported by a steady flow of R&D spending for its economic growth”.

The statutory board’s chief executive officer Daren Tang said: “While we are heartened by Singapore’s continued strong performance in the GII, we will spare no efforts in driving a global innovation mindset at entrepreneur, company and national levels, as well as encouraging further discussions on fresh governance frameworks and policies for Singapore to remain competitive.”

The perfect world for innovation (Click to enlarge)