Israel continues to lead the UN’s Global Innovation Index in North Africa and Western Asia category for 7th consecutive yea, ranking 17th overall in the high-income countries group.
• Ranking reflects results in human capital & research, market & business sophistication, and of course, technology production.

By Yair Altman and Israel Hayom Staff

Israel continues to cement its status as a leader of global innovation, the U.N.’s Global Innovation Index for 2017 has found.

The Global Innovation Index surveys 130 economies, gauging standards from patent filings to education spending, with aim of providing policy makers with a comprehensive view of innovative activity that increasingly drives economic and social growth.

The GII’s 10th edition, titled “Innovation Feeding the World,” was released Wednesday. The findings, co-authored by the U.N.’s World Intellectual Property Organization, Cornell University and INSEAD, the European Institute of Business Administration, noted a continued gap in innovative capacity between developed and developing nations, as well as “lackluster growth rates” for research and development activities on the government and corporate levels.

For the seventh consecutive year, Israel topped the North Africa and Western Asia category, and ranked 17th overall in the group of high-income countries, improving its standing by four places from 2016.

Israel’s innovation rating reflects results in four areas: human capital and research, market sophistication, business sophistication and knowledge and technology production.

The Jewish state outperformed Canada, Norway, Austria, China, Australia, Spain and Italy — some of its counterparts in the high-income countries group, the findings showed.

“Israel has shown improvement in gross expenditure on R&D and ICT [information and communication technology] exports, while keeping its top spots worldwide in research, venture capital deals, GERD [gross domestic expenditure on R&D] performed by business, and research talent in business enterprise,” the report said.

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http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=43297