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Ranked: The Most Innovative Countries in 2023

Technology · October 7, 2024 · 0 Comment

The Most Innovative Countries in the World 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

For full methodology notes on which economies are included in the report, see the bottom of the article.

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.

Most Innovative Countries 2019 to 2023

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.

Where Does This Data Come From?

Source: World Intellectual Property Organization Global Innovation Index (2023).

Note: The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is an agency of the United Nations. It includes 190 UN member states, as well as three non-members: the Cook Islands, Holy See, and Niue.

Countries that are not a part of the WIPO include three UN-recognized countries—the Federated States of Micronesia, Palau and South Sudan—as well as other non-members including Taiwan.

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