Ranked: The World’s Most Innovative Countries in 2024

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The Global Innovation Index (GII) 2024, published by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), ranks 133 economies based on their innovation capabilities and performance. This year’s report highlights shifts in global innovation leadership, with a focus on emerging economies challenging traditional leaders.

To summarize the results of this year’s GII, we visualized each economy’s score using a global heatmap. Lower scores are shown as darker shades of blue, transitioning to green and then yellow as score increases.

Methodology

The GII measures each economy based on seven underlying innovation pillars, which altogether comprise 78 indicators. These are summarized in the table below:

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

The overall GII scores (which are what we’ve shown in the graphic above) are based on the average scores from these seven pillars.

Most Innovative Countries in 2024

The following table includes all of the data we used to create this graphic. For the 14th consecutive year, Switzerland was named the world’s most innovative country.

Rank	Name	Score
1	🇨🇭 Switzerland	67.5
2	🇸🇪 Sweden	64.5
3	🇺🇸 U.S.	62.4
4	🇸🇬 Singapore	61.2
5	🇬🇧 UK	61
6	🇰🇷 South Korea	60.9
7	🇫🇮 Finland	59.4
8	🇳🇱 Netherlands	58.8
9	🇩🇪 Germany	58.1
10	🇩🇰 Denmark	57.1
11	🇨🇳 China	56.3
12	🇫🇷 France	55.4
13	🇯🇵 Japan	54.1
14	🇨🇦 Canada	52.9
15	🇮🇱 Israel	52.7
16	🇪🇪 Estonia	52.3
17	🇦🇹 Austria	50.3
18	🇭🇰 Hong Kong	50.1
19	🇮🇪 Ireland	50
20	🇱🇺 Luxembourg	49.1
21	🇳🇴 Norway	49.1
22	🇮🇸 Iceland	48.5
23	🇦🇺 Australia	48.1
24	🇧🇪 Belgium	47.7
25	🇳🇿 New Zealand	45.9
26	🇮🇹 Italy	45.3
27	🇨🇾 Cyprus	45.1
28	🇪🇸 Spain	44.9
29	🇲🇹 Malta	44.8
30	🇨🇿 Czech Republic	44
31	🇵🇹 Portugal	43.7
32	🇦🇪 UAE	42.8
33	🇲🇾 Malaysia	40.5
34	🇸🇮 Slovenia	40.2
35	🇱🇹 Lithuania	40.1
36	🇭🇺 Hungary	39.6
37	🇹🇷 Türkiye	39
38	🇧🇬 Bulgaria	38.5
39	🇮🇳 India	38.3
40	🇵🇱 Poland	37
41	🇹🇭 Thailand	36.9
42	🇱🇻 Latvia	36.4
43	🇭🇷 Croatia	36.3
44	🇻🇳 Viet Nam	36.2
45	🇬🇷 Greece	36.2
46	🇸🇰 Slovakia	34.3
47	🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia	33.9
48	🇷🇴 Romania	33.4
49	🇶🇦 Qatar	32.9
50	🇧🇷 Brazil	32.7
51	🇨🇱 Chile	32.6
52	🇷🇸 Serbia	32.3
53	🇵🇭 Philippines	31.1
54	🇮🇩 Indonesia	30.6
55	🇲🇺 Mauritius	30.6
56	🇲🇽 Mexico	30.4
57	🇬🇪 Georgia	30.4
58	🇲🇰 North Macedonia	29.9
59	🇷🇺 Russia	29.7
60	🇺🇦 Ukraine	29.5
61	🇨🇴 Colombia	29.2
62	🇺🇾 Uruguay	29.1
63	🇦🇲 Armenia	29
64	🇮🇷 Iran	28.9
65	🇲🇪 Montenegro	28.9
66	🇲🇦 Morocco	28.8
67	🇲🇳 Mongolia	28.7
68	🇲🇩 Moldova	28.7
69	🇿🇦 South Africa	28.3
70	🇨🇷 Costa Rica	28.3
71	🇰🇼 Kuwait	28.1
72	🇧🇭 Bahrain	27.6
73	🇯🇴 Jordan	27.5
74	🇴🇲 Oman	27.1
75	🇵🇪 Peru	26.7
76	🇦🇷 Argentina	26.4
77	🇧🇧 Barbados	26.1
78	🇰🇿 Kazakhstan	25.7
79	🇯🇲 Jamaica	25.7
80	🇧🇦 Bosnia & Herzegovina	25.5
81	🇹🇳 Tunisia	25.4
82	🇵🇦 Panama	24.7
83	🇺🇿 Uzbekistan	24.7
84	🇦🇱 Albania	24.5
85	🇧🇾 Belarus	24.2
86	🇪🇬 Egypt	23.7
87	🇧🇼 Botswana	23.1
88	🇧🇳 Brunei Darussalam	22.8
89	🇱🇰 Sri Lanka	22.6
90	🇨🇻 Cabo Verde	22.3
91	🇵🇰 Pakistan	22
92	🇸🇳 Senegal	22
93	🇵🇾 Paraguay	21.9
94	🇱🇧 Lebanon	21.5
95	🇦🇿 Azerbaijan	21.3
96	🇰🇪 Kenya	21
97	🇩🇴 Dominican Republic	20.8
98	🇸🇻 El Salvador	20.6
99	🇰🇬 Kyrgyzstan	20.4
100	🇧🇴 Bolivia	20.2
101	🇬🇭 Ghana	20
102	🇳🇦 Namibia	20
103	🇰🇭 Cambodia	19.9
104	🇷🇼 Rwanda	19.7
105	🇪🇨 Ecuador	19.3
106	🇧🇩 Bangladesh	19.1
107	🇹🇯 Tajikistan	18.6
108	🇹🇹 Trinidad and Tobago	18.4
109	🇳🇵 Nepal	18.1
110	🇲🇬 Madagascar	17.9
111	🇱🇦 Laos	17.8
112	🇨🇮 Côte d’Ivoire	17.5
113	🇳🇬 Nigeria	17.1
114	🇭🇳 Honduras	16.7
115	🇩🇿 Algeria	16.2
116	🇿🇲 Zambia	15.7
117	🇹🇬 Togo	15.6
118	🇿🇼 Zimbabwe	15.6
119	🇧🇯 Benin	15.4
120	🇹🇿 Tanzania	15.3
121	🇺🇬 Uganda	14.9
122	🇬🇹 Guatemala	14.6
123	🇨🇲 Cameroon	14.4
124	🇳🇮 Nicaragua	14
125	🇲🇲 Myanmar	13.8
126	🇲🇷 Mauritania	13.2
127	🇧🇮 Burundi	13.2
128	🇲🇿 Mozambique	13.1
129	🇧🇫 Burkina Faso	12.8
130	🇪🇹 Ethiopia	12.3
131	🇲🇱 Mali	11.8
132	🇳🇪 Niger	11.2
133	🇦🇴 Angola	10.2

Similar to last year, the U.S. takes third place in the GII. It ranked the highest in Market Sophistication (#1) and Business Sophistication (#2), but its overall score was dragged down by its lower rank in Infrastructure (#30).

A key theme of this year’s GII is innovation overperformers, which are countries that perform above expectation relative to their level of development.

The top three in this regard are India, Moldova, and Vietnam. All three of these economies have overperformed over the past 14 years since 2011.

Other Key Takeaways

The GII 2024 also provides insight into the current state of global innovation. Here are some of the highlights:

Technological progress: The rate of progress in green technologies is lagging behind average growth for the decade. A key challenge here is reducing the energy consumption of supercomputers.
Technology adoption: 5G, robotics, and electric vehicles are all seeing increased penetration levels.
Socioeconomic impact: The GII reports mixed progress, partly due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, levels of poverty are higher than those recorded in 2018, while life expectancy remains at 2015 levels.

Learn More on the Voronoi App

If you enjoyed this post, check out this ranking of the top companies by number of AI patents granted on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

Ranked: The World’s Most Innovative Countries in 2024