World Intellectual Property Organization Global Innovation Index

June 19, 2017

The Philippines managed to climb a notch in the 2017 Global Innovation Index (GII) moving from No. 74 to No. 73 out of 127 economies tracked in the report.

The report is published annually by Cornell University, INSEAD, and the World Intellectual Property Organization. GII is a leading benchmarking tool for business executives, policymakers and others seeking insight into the state of innovation

The Philippines obtained a score of 32.48 out of 100, up from 31.8 in the previous year. The score is based on the average of the innovation input and output sub-indices.

Of the seven pillars, the country made improvements on Market Sophistication (No. 92, Up 2 from No. 94), Knowledge and Technology outputs (No. 42, Up 2 from No. 44), and Creative Output (No. 94, Up 2 from No. 96) and a significant jump on Business Sophistication Pillar (No. 45, Up 29 from No. 74)―which measures innovation linkages and knowledge workers.

A drop was reflected in Institutions No. 89 (Down 1, from No. 88)―this evaluates political, regulatory, and business environments, while Human Capital and Research (No. 95) and Infrastructure (No. 72) recorded no movement.

Overtaken by Vietnam (No. 47, Up 12 from No. 59), the Philippines is now ranked No. 6 out of the eight ASEAN economies in the report. Indonesia (No. 87, Up 1 from No. 88) and Thailand (No. 51, Up 1 from No. 52) both climbed a notch while Singapore (No. 7, Down 1 from No. 6) and Malaysia (No. 37, Down 2 from No. 35) dropped their rankings.

Brunei was not included in the 2016 and 2015 report whereas; Lao PDR and Myanmar did not take part in this year’s release. Globally, innovation achievers for this year are Switzerland, Sweden, Netherlands, USA, and United Kingdom.

“Next to innovation powerhouses such as China, Japan, and the Republic of Korea, a group of Asian economies including Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines and Viet Nam are actively working to improve their innovation ecosystems and rank high in a number of important indicators related to education, R&D, productivity growth, high- tech exports, among others.” the report stated.

“Efforts to bridge the innovation divide have to start with helping emerging economies understand their innovation strengths and weaknesses and create appropriate policies and metrics,” said Soumitra Dutta, Dean, Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, Cornell University.