Global Innovation Index logo© INSEAD, 2011

The 2012 GII model includes 141 countries that represent 94.9% of the world's population and 99.4% of the world's GDP.

The top 10 include Switzerland, Sweden, Singapore, Finland, United Kingdom, Netherlands, Denmark, Hong Kong (SAR, China), Ireland, and the United States.

Most of the old EU member states (EU-15) are in the top 30 of the GII ranking. However, some of the new member states, namely Malta (16th), Estonia (19th), Slovenia (26th), Czech Republic (27th), Cyprus (28th), Latvia and Hungary (30th) have improved their ranking and are now ahead of Portugal (35th), Italy (36th), and Greece (66th). All EU 27 countries are represented in the ranking.

The 2012 GII is the simple average of two sub-indices, the Innovation Input Sub-Index (assessing Institutions, Human capital & research, Infrastructure, Market sophistication, and Business sophistication), and the Innovation Output Sub-Index (assessing actual evidence of innovation outputs, namely Technological outputs and Creative outputs). The GII is described by 84 indicators of three different types: quantitative data (62 indicators), composite indicators (16 indicators), and survey data (6 indicators).

JRC scientists made recommendations to the GII developers related to the conceptual and statistical coherence of the GII, its structure, and the impact of key modelling assumptions on its scores and ranks. Overall, the JRC analysis suggests that the multi-level structure of the GII is statistically coherent, with a balanced structure which is not dominated by any pillar or sub-pillar. Country rankings are in most cases fairly robust according to methodological assumptions (estimation of missing data, weighting, and aggregation formula).

Related Links

• Institute for the Protection and Security of the Citizen (IPSC)
• INSEAD: The Global Innovation Index
• More on JRC's activities in the field of composite indicators