Introduction
Findings of GII report
Spotlight on Nordic countries
On 20 September 2021, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), along with Cornell University, Portulans Institute and INSEAD, released the 14th Global Innovation Index (GII)(1) report. The approximately 200-page report includes a wide range of information about the state of innovation ecosystems in 132 countries.
In his foreword to the GII, Daren Tang, WIPO director general, addressed the impact of the ongoing pandemic on innovation in various economies by stressing certain positive outcomes:
The GII 2021 finds that governments and enterprises in many parts of the world have scaled up their investments in innovation during the COVID-19 pandemic. Meantime, scientific output, expenditures in research and development, intellectual property filings and venture capital deals continued to grow in 2020, building on strong peak pre-crisis performance.(2)
Soumitra Dutta and Bruno Lanvin, co-editors of the Global Innovation Index and co-founders of the Portulans Institute, highlighted in their foreword the three major sectors that are currently attracting attention and funding: health, green and digital technology. In addition, they pointed out that:
advances and innovations can be expected in critical areas, such as health (for example, genetic engineering), pharmaceuticals (especially vaccines), energy production (with a focus on renewables), logistics and urban design, all powered by breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and quantum computing.(3)
In contrast, sectors such as hospitality and automobiles have decreased research and development (R&D) investment during the pandemic.
This year, the GII included a new section, the "Global Innovation Tracker", which analysed a select set of indicators: science and innovation investments, technological progress and socioeconomic impact.
The number of international patent filings was one of the indications of the science and innovation investment, along with scientific publications, R&D expenditures and venture capital deals.
The global performance of international (Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT)) patent filings increased by 3.5% in 2020, but the growth was not uniform across the globe with a 16% increase in PCT filings from China and a moderate increase from South Korea and the United States. Instead, most European countries show a decrease in filings.
In contrast to recent patent trends where digital technologies dominated the statistics, in 2020 the most dynamic technologies related to the heath sector (medical technology, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology). However, it is important to note that:
most of the inventions underlying international patent filings in 2020 predate the pandemic. The strong patenting performance of health-related technologies does not, therefore, reflect an invention response to the crisis. Rather, it indicates that the pandemic has led innovators in the health-care sector to upgrade the commercial potential of their recent inventions.(4)
In the 2021 GII, the top four economies were the same as in the 2020 edition (and they also ranked in the same order): Switzerland, Sweden, the United States and the United Kingdom. South Korea ranked fifth, moving up five positions from last year.
Overall, Nordic countries ranked in the 2021 GII as follows: Sweden (2), Finland (7), Denmark (9), Iceland (17) and Norway (20). Thus, three of the Nordic countries ranked in the top 10 countries globally and all five were in the top 20. Overall, the GII notes that:
Finland has the most highly performing Institutions in the region (2nd worldwide). Sweden leads in Human capital and research (2nd) and Business sophistication (1st), Norway comes top in Infrastructure worldwide (1st).(5)
Various factors have been identified as contributing to the success of the Nordic region in this regard:(6)
- building societal trust that allows entrepreneurs to take risks and innovate;
- investing in people (through education and the welfare system); and
- ensuring gender equality.
The dynamic nature of the Nordic region was also confirmed by the 2021 European Innovation Scoreboard (for further details please see "Nordic countries dominate EIS again"), where the top three European countries were Sweden, Finland and Denmark. Each of these countries are innovation leaders in the European Union and globally.
For further information on this topic please contact Mariella Massaro or Robert Alderson at Berggren Oy by telephone (+358 10 227 2000) or email ([email protected] or r[email protected]). The Berggren Oy website can be accessed at www.berggren.eu/en/.
Endnotes
(1) Further information is available here.
(6) Stina Billinger, state secretary of the Swedish Ministry of Enterprise and Innovation, identified these factors as key to Sweden's success during WIPO's 20 September 2021 live stream for the launch of the 2021 GIIs. These factors are common to all Nordic countries and it is reasonable to extend Billinger's comments to the Nordic region as a whole.