Sri Lanka drops 12 places to 101 in 2020 global innovation ranking

Sri Lanka dropped 12 places to be ranked at 101st place in the latest Global Innovation Index (GII) 2020 from last year’s 89th rank with a score of 23.78 on a 0-100 scale, 100 being the most innovative.

The 2020 edition of the Global Innovation Index (GII) released by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) presents the latest global innovation trends and the annual innovation ranking of 131 economies.

The GII measured the performance of countries and economies in the area of innovation, which represents the majority of the global workforce and global GDP.

Sri Lanka along with 10 other countries performing at expectations before is now performing below expectations for their level of development. In 2019, these eleven economies were already at the border of performing below expectations and swap out of the performing-at-expectations group, the report said.

Sri Lanka performed poorly in sub-indices of Institutions (119th) Human Capital and Research (119th) while showing strength in Infrastructure (78th), Business Sophistication (70th) and Knowledge and Technology Outputs (68th). The country ranked 118th in Market Sophistication sub index, and 100th in Creative Outputs.

In South Asia, India ranked at 48th showing strength in all sub categories and Nepal ranked at 95th position. Pakistan ranked at 107th dropping from the last year’s 105th position and Bangladesh ranked 116th in the 2020 index.

Switzerland is the world’s most-innovative economy followed by Sweden, the United States of America (US), the United Kingdom (U.K.) and the Netherlands, according to the GII 2020.

Regional leaders include India, South Africa, Chile, Israel and Singapore, with China, Viet Nam and the United Republic of Tanzania topping their income groups.