Achieves highest ranking in over a decade; retains top spot in South-east Asia, East Asia and Oceania

SINGAPORE - Singapore moved up a notch to 4th in its ranking in the annual Global Innovation Index (GII), the highest in over a decade, while retaining the top spot in the South-east Asia, East Asia and Oceania (SEAO) region, a press release stated by the Intellectual Property Office of Singapore (IPOS).

The GII is a global ranking of the world’s most innovative economies and published by the World Intellectual Property Organization. This year, the index used 78 indicators to track innovation trends in 133 economies.

Singapore topped 14 out of 78 indicators (up from 11), including government effectiveness, information and communications technology (ICT) access, unicorn valuations and venture capital (VC).

The ranking is based on two broad areas: innovation inputs and outputs. Innovation inputs refer to factors that enable innovative activities while innovation outputs refer to the actual results of innovative activity in an economy.
Singapore retained its top rank in innovation inputs, seeing significant shifts in sub-component indicators under Human Capital & Research and Business Sophistication - ‘Education’ improved by 7 positions (to 39th) and ‘Innovation linkages’ improved by 5 positions (to 7th) respectively.

Said Rena Lee, Chief Executive of IPOS: “We are encouraged by the steady progress in Singapore’s journey as a global innovation hub, which is the result of joint efforts over the years across government, research, and business sectors to support innovation growth. The Singapore IP Strategy 2030 aims to continue broadening the scope of IP to the larger economy, into areas such as IP financing and commercialization, to keep us on an innovation and business growth trajectory.”