Vietnam top in world innovation

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The report ranks 141 countries and economies based on their innovation capabilities and results, jointly conducted by WIPO, INSEAD, Alcatel-Lucent, Booz&Company and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

The study shows that the dynamics of innovation continue to be affected by the emergence of new successful innovators, as seen by the range of countries across continents in the top twenty GII ranking.

Good emerging country performers include Vietnam, Latvia, Malaysia, China, Montenegro, Serbia, Moldova, Jordan, Ukraine, India, Mongolia, Armenia, Georgia, Namibia, Swaziland, Paraguay, Ghana, Senegal, Kenya and Zimbabwe.

The list of top 10 GII performers has changed little from last year. Switzerland, Sweden, and Singapore are followed in the top ten by Finland, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Denmark, Hong Kong (China), Ireland, and the United States of America.

"The GII is a timely reminder that policies to promote innovation are critical to the debate on spurring sustainable economic growth," said WIPO director general Francis Gurry.

He added, "The downward pressure on investment in innovation exerted by the current crisis must be resisted. Otherwise we risk durable damage to countries' productive capacities."

"This is the time for forward-looking policies to lay the foundations for future prosperity."

This is the fifth year the GII has been published, and the first in which INSEAD and WIPO are co-publishers.

The GII project was launched in 2007 with the goal of determining how to find metrics and approaches to better capture the richness of innovation in society.

The theme of this year's GII report, ‘Stronger Innovation Linkages for Global Growth', underlines the importance of productive interactions among innovation actors – firms, the public sector, academia, and society – in modern innovation ecosystems.