The U.S. Is (Again) Among the World's Top Innovators

Following another year of technological advancements and open competition with its Chinese counterpart, the United States is again among the top three most innovative nations in the world, according to the 2019 Global Innovation Index. The U.S. is also considered the No. 1 high-income economy for quality innovation.

In 2018, the U.S. lost its standing as a global leader in innovation. In more than a decade, America went from No. 1 in 2007 to No. 6 in the Global Innovation Index or GII, a ranking produced by INSEAD, the World Intellectual Property Organization and the SC Johnson College of Business at Cornell University. Countries such as Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Singapore surpassed America.

This year, the U.S. is surpassed only by Switzerland, ranked No. 1, and Sweden. The U.S. is considered the most innovative country in North and Central America.

"The United States of America reaches the 3rd position worldwide, in part due to performance increases and the availability of new U.S. innovation data," write the authors of the 2019 GII report that is based on international patent filings and scientific publishing activity "The U.S. improves its rank in five of the seven GII pillars: Institutions (11th); Human capital and research (12th); Infrastructure (23rd); Business sophistication (7th); and Knowledge and technology outputs (4th)."

The U.S. also ranked first in the world in public and private expenditures on research and development, having spent $511 billion in 2017, compared to $452 billion by China. Germany, Japan and South Korea also ranked in the top five, but lagged far behind the first two.

Switzerland leads the ranking for the ninth consecutive year, being praised for the number of patents, information and communications technology imports, intellectual property receipts, foreign direct investment outflows and environmental performance.

Sweden has held the No. 2 ranking six times. China, America's biggest rival in technological advancement, continued its climb, moving from No. 17 in 2018 to No. 14 this year. This, say the GII report authors, makes China "firmly" establishing itself as one of the innovation leaders. China is also the most innovative nation among upper-middle income economies.

China also made "an impressive improvement" in the Innovation Output Sub-Index this year, the report adds, reaching the fifth spot in that category, up five positions from last year

For the first time, Israel entered the top 10 most innovative countries in the world in 2019, while Sweden reached the top position in patent families.