Sweden edged up a notch and landed at #2 on the Global Innovation Index, SvD reported today (). Sweden lands behind leader Switzerland (have they confused the two of us again??) and ahead of third place winner the United States. Rounded to their nearest whole number, the rankings are 67, 64 and 62 respectively. The Netherlands and the UK fill out the top 5 rankings.
The Index, published by Cornell University, the business school INSEAD, and by the World Intellectual Property Organization (an agency with the UN), ranks countries’ innovation capabilities and results, looking at a lot more than just the usual R&D blah blah of each country. The report goes way more in depth, and looks at innovation input – elements of each nation’s economy that further and nurture innovative activities: Institutions; Human capital and research; Infrastructure; Market sophistication; and Business sophistication. Then they go ahead and look at the output, in knowledge and technology as well as creative output. That’s a lot of measures. And Sweden still came out on top (or next to, at any rate). Not so shabby!
If you want to go whole hog and just roll around in their methodology and results check out the report in full at globalinnovationindex.org.