These are the world’s most innovative countries

Joe Myers
Writer, Forum Stories

Technological innovation is the key to a competitive and growing economy, unlocking major productivity gains and allowing companies to move towards higher value-added activities.

The World Economic Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report 2015-16 evaluates 140 of the world’s economies on various measures of innovation – including the quality of scientific research institutions and spending on research and development – to produce an overall global ranking.

1510B04-innovative countries graph

Switzerland emerges as the most innovative country in the world, with Finland coming a close second – swapping places since last year’s report. Four other European nations are also in the top 10: Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands and Denmark.

Japan and Singapore represent Asia, while Israel and the United States complete the top 10.

Have you read?
Can you measure innovation?
How can Europe become more innovative?
4 essential ingredients of innovation

To keep up with the Agenda subscribe to our weekly newsletter.

Author: Joe Myers is a Digital Content Producer at Formative Content. 

Image: Traditional Incandescent light bulbs are seen at an apartment, August 31, 2009. REUTERS/Michael Dalder 

Don't miss any update on this topic

Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.

Sign up for free

License and Republishing

World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

Stay up to date:

Innovation

Share:
The Big Picture
Explore and monitor how Innovation is affecting economies, industries and global issues
World Economic Forum logo

Forum Stories newsletter

Bringing you weekly curated insights and analysis on the global issues that matter.

Subscribe today

About us

Engage with us

  • Sign in
  • Partner with us
  • Become a member
  • Sign up for our press releases
  • Subscribe to our newsletters
  • Contact us

Quick links

Language editions

Privacy Policy & Terms of Service

Sitemap

© 2024 World Economic Forum