Ranked: The Most Innovative Countries in 2023

Which countries are the global innovation powerhouses?

In many ways, the past year has represented an inflection point in technological advancement. Almost overnight, OpenAI’s large language model ChatGPT became a household name and AI was within reach to the masses.

Yet looking under the surface, innovation is influenced by several unseen factors, from the institutional environment and high-tech exports to research talent and entrepreneurship culture.

This graphic shows the most innovative countries in the world, based on the 2023 Global Innovation Index (GII) put together by the World Intellectual Property Organization.

How is Innovation Measured?

The GII framework uses seven pillars and 80 indicators to assess a country’s innovative strength:

Innovation Pillar	Example Indicators
Knowledge & Tech Outputs	Patent applications, Hi-tech manufacturing
Human Capital & Research	Researchers per million population, Global corporate R&D investors
Business Sophistication	Knowledge-intensive employment, University-industry R&D collaboration
Market Sophistication	Finance for startups, Venture capital received
Creative Outputs	Trademark applications, Global brand value
Infrastructure	Environmental performance, Information and communication technology access
Institutions	Regulatory quality, Policies for doing business

Together, the sum of these pillars produces an overall score for each country.

Most Innovative Countries in 2023

For the 13th consecutive year, Switzerland was named the world’s most innovative country.

Among the key factors underscoring its rank are its policies for doing business and its scale of patent applications. Its world-class research institutions and skilled workforce are also key ingredients in fostering innovation.

Below, we show the most innovative countries in 2023 across 132 economies:

Rank	Country	Score
1	Switzerland	67.6
2	Sweden	64.2
3	U.S.	63.5
4	UK	62.4
5	Singapore	61.5
6	Finland	61.2
7	Netherlands	60.4
8	Germany	58.8
9	Denmark	58.7
10	South Korea	58.6
11	France	56.0
12	China	55.3
13	Japan	54.6
14	Israel	54.3
15	Canada	53.8
16	Estonia	53.4
17	Hong Kong SAR	53.3
18	Austria	53.2
19	Norway	50.7
20	Iceland	50.7
21	Luxembourg	50.6
22	Ireland	50.4
23	Belgium	49.9
24	Australia	49.7
25	Malta	49.1
26	Italy	46.6
27	New Zealand	46.6
28	Cyprus	46.3
29	Spain	45.9
30	Portugal	44.9
31	Czech Republic	44.8
32	UAE	43.2
33	Slovenia	42.2
34	Lithuania	42.0
35	Hungary	41.3
36	Malaysia	40.9
37	Latvia	39.7
38	Bulgaria	39.0
39	Türkiye	38.6
40	India	38.1
41	Poland	37.7
42	Greece	37.5
43	Thailand	37.1
44	Croatia	37.1
45	Slovakia	36.2
46	Vietnam	36.0
47	Romania	34.7
48	Saudi Arabia	34.5
49	Brazil	33.6
50	Qatar	33.4
51	Russia	33.3
52	Chile	33.3
53	Serbia	33.1
54	North Macedonia	33.0
55	Ukraine	32.8
56	Philippines	32.2
57	Mauritius	32.1
58	Mexico	31.0
59	South Africa	30.4
60	Moldova	30.3
61	Indonesia	30.3
62	Iran	30.1
63	Uruguay	30.0
64	Kuwait	29.9
65	Georgia	29.9
66	Colombia	29.4
67	Bahrain	29.1
68	Mongolia	28.8
69	Oman	28.4
70	Morocco	28.4
71	Jordan	28.2
72	Armenia	28.0
73	Argentina	28.0
74	Costa Rica	27.9
75	Montenegro	27.8
76	Peru	27.7
77	Bosnia and Herzegovina	27.1
78	Jamaica	27.1
79	Tunisia	26.9
80	Belarus	26.8
81	Kazakhstan	26.7
82	Uzbekistan	26.2
83	Albania	25.4
84	Panama	25.3
85	Botswana	24.6
86	Egypt	24.2
87	Brunei	23.5
88	Pakistan	23.3
89	Azerbaijan	23.3
90	Sri Lanka	23.3
91	Cabo Verde	23.3
92	Lebanon	23.2
93	Senegal	22.5
94	Dominican Republic	22.4
95	El Salvador	21.8
96	Namibia	21.8
97	Bolivia	21.4
98	Paraguay	21.4
99	Ghana	21.3
100	Kenya	21.2
101	Cambodia	20.8
102	Trinidad and Tobago	20.7
103	Rwanda	20.6
104	Ecuador	20.5
105	Bangladesh	20.2
106	Kyrgyzstan	20.2
107	Madagascar	19.1
108	Nepal	18.8
109	Nigeria	18.4
110	Laos	18.3
111	Tajikistan	18.3
112	Côte d’Ivoire	18.2
113	Tanzania	17.4
114	Togo	16.9
115	Nicaragua	16.9
116	Honduras	16.7
117	Zimbabwe	16.5
118	Zambia	16.4
119	Algeria	16.1
120	Benin	16.0
121	Uganda	16.0
122	Guatemala	15.8
123	Cameroon	15.3
124	Burkina Faso	14.5
125	Ethiopia	14.3
126	Mozambique	13.6
127	Mauritania	13.5
128	Guinea	13.3
129	Mali	12.9
130	Burundi	12.5
131	Niger	12.4
132	Angola	10.3

Sweden ranked second, rising above the U.S. this year. The country excelled in business sophistication, knowledge-intensive employment, and researchers per capita.

While the U.S. ranked third overall, it saw the highest scores in venture capital received, global corporate research and development (R&D) investors, and total unicorn value. Of the 1,206 global unicorns as of April 2023, the U.S. was home to 54% of the total.

At fifth overall, Singapore ranked the highest in Asia. As both a financial hub and global innovator, Singapore ranked strongly on government effectiveness, venture capital received, and stability for business. It has the highest venture funding per capita in the world.

Brazil (49th) ranked highest in Latin America, while Mauritius (57th) was the top-ranking country in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Top 25 Science & Technology Clusters

Here are the top science and technology (S&T) clusters per capita, based on the density of scientific authors and inventors in a geographic location:

2023 Ranking	Cluster	Economy	Top Applicant	Top Scientific Organization
1	Cambridge	UK	ARM	Cambridge University
2	San Jose– San Francisco	U.S.	Google	Stanford University
3	Oxford	UK	Oxford University	Oxford University
4	Eindhoven	Netherlands	Philips Electronics	Eindhoven University of Technology
5	Boston– Cambridge	U.S.	MIT	MIT
6	Daejeon	South Korea	LG Chem	KAIST
7	Ann Arbor	U.S.	University of Michigan	University of Michigan
8	San Diego	U.S.	Qualcomm	University of California San Diego
9	Seattle	U.S.	Microsoft	University of Washington Seattle
10	Munich	Germany	BMW	Technical University of Munich
11	Kanazawa	Japan	Fujitsu	Kanazawa University
12	Raleigh	U.S.	Duke University	Duke University
13	Göteborg	Sweden	LM Ericsson	University of Gothenburg
14	Beijing	China	BOE Technology	Tsinghua University
15	Stockholm	Sweden	LM Ericsson	Karolinska Institutet
16	Helsinki	Finland	Nokia	University of Helsinki
17	Zürich	Switzerland	ETH Zürich	ETH Zürich
18	Tokyo–Yokohama	Japan	Mitsubishi Electric	University of Tokyo
19	Basel	Switzerland, Denmark, France	DSM IP Assets	University of Basel
20	Copenhagen	Denmark	Novo Nordisk	University of Copenhagen
21	Nuremberg–Erlangen	Germany	Siemens	University of Erlangen Nuremberg
22	Stuttgart	Germany	Robert Bosch	Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen
23	Minneapolis	U.S.	3M Innovative Properties	University of Minnesota Twin Cities
24	Pittsburgh	U.S.	University of Pittsburgh	University of Pittsburgh
25	Seoul	South Korea	Samsung Electronics	Seoul National University

As the top S&T cluster by intensity, Cambridge produced 37,000 articles per million people. Its top applicant, ARM, is a semiconductor company working closely with Cambridge University. Over 130 billion devices globally have used chips based on ARM’s designs.

The San Jose-San Francisco cluster ranked second, with Google as the top applicant. In 2022, the U.S. granted Google’s parent company Alphabet 2,077 patents.

South Korea’s Daejeon cluster is the top in Asia, led by battery maker LG Chem. In 2022, over 49,000 domestic and overseas patents were registered. In fact, both Honda and GM are partnering with LG Chem to build multi-billion dollar battery factories in Ohio over the next few years.

As we can see, many of the world’s most innovative countries have strong clusters that attract tech firms, researchers, and knowledge-intensive workers due to a host of factors that support disruption and tech advancement.

These tech clusters have a powerful effect on creating innovations that extend across multiple sectors of the economy, and the wider global landscape.

This content was originally published here.