South Korea surges in UN innovation index

South Korea made the biggest jump among the world's 10 most innovative economies in the UN's annual rankings published on Thursday, alongside a gloomy global outlook for innovation investment.

While leaders Switzerland, followed by Sweden and then the United States, retained the top three positions in the Global Innovation Index 2024, Singapore overtook Britain to secure fourth place.

But South Korea was the biggest mover in the GII's top 10, up four places to sixth, leapfrogging Finland, the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark.

Now in its 17th edition, the GII ranking of 133 countries is the flagship publication of the World Intellectual Property Organisation, the UN agency dealing with patenting and innovation.

"Looking at the global landscape in 2023, we find cloudy skies and gloomy weather," said WIPO chief Daren Tang.

He said that following the boom years of 2020 to 2022, research and development expenditures declined, the number of scientific publications fell, and venture capital investments returned to pre-pandemic levels.

"However, technological progress remained strong in 2023, particularly in health-related fields like genome sequencing, as well as in computing power and electric batteries. Technology adoption also deepened, especially in 5G, robotics, and electric vehicles," Tang said.

Amid tighter financial conditions, the GII's co-editor Sacha Wunsch-Vincent said the slowdown in innovation investment made "the prospect for 2024 and 2025 quite uncertain".

"This comes after a prolonged period of almost an innovation golden age.

"The geopolitical circumstances certainly play a role. The very high interest rates, which put an end to cheap money, are also part of the problem," he explained.

"We are at a real crossroads in terms of the innovation investment scenarios."

Switzerland ranks first in the GII for the 14th consecutive year.

Of the 78 indicators used for the index, Singapore comes top in 14 — more than any other country, and overtaking the United States — and is now fourth in the overall rankings.

"However, even if Singapore moves closer to the top three, breaking into that group remains challenging," WIPO said.

As for South Korea's surge, Wunsch-Vincent said its companies had had to rethink their strategy in the smartphone, IT and semiconductor markets, with some "quite cutting-edge technologies coming out" of the country again.

"It took two or so years for these companies to readjust and to come out stronger, which explains this rise in ranking," he told reporters.

Tang added that South Korea benefited from innovation-oriented regulations and heavy private investment in research and development.

Besides industry and technology, it is also a creative and cultural powerhouse, he said, citing K-pop and Korean dramas.

"South Korea has been able to make that a very important part of their exports," said Tang.

China, which overtook France in 11th place, remains the only middle-income economy in the GII top 30.

The top three upper middle-income countries in the index were China, Malaysia (33rd) and Turkey (37th).

The highest-ranked lower middle-income nations were India (39th), Vietnam (44th) and the Philippines (53rd).

The front-runners in the low-income group were Rwanda (104th), Madagascar (110th) and Togo (117th).

(2023 position in brackets)

15 -- Israel (14)