(Publ. 20 AUG 2018) Sweden has a high capacity for innovation and is still at the absolute top of the world. This is according to the World Intellectual Property Organization’s, WIPO’s, annual survey “The Global Innovation Index 2018”. Sweden is in third place in the rankings, where a total of 126 countries’ capacity for innovation is measured.

Switzerland, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom are the world’s most innovative nations according to The Global Innovation Index. The entire top-10 list can be found below, with each country’s position from 2017 in parentheses.

China is rapidly climbing in in the rankings, and have reach place number 17 this year. Other countries to look out for, which consistently climb in the rankings, are Malaysia, India, Iran, Mexico, Thailand and Vietnam.

The Global Innovation Index examines innovation capabilities and results on the basis of 80 indicators, ranging from intellectual property filing rates to mobile-application creation, education spending and scientific and technical publications. The rankings have been published annually since in 2007.

Highlights from this year:

Leading economies that innovate efficiently – translating investments in education and Research & Development into high-quality innovation outputs – are Switzerland, Luxembourg, China, the Netherlands, Ukraine, the Republic of Moldova, Malta, Hungary, Germany, and Sweden;

Global leaders in the development of mobile apps relative to GDP are Cyprus, Finland and Lithuania.

The world’s 10 most innovative countries:

1 Switzerland (number 1 in 2017)
2 Netherlands (3)
3 Sweden (2)
4 United Kingdom (5)
5 Singapore (7)
6 United States of America (4)
7 Finland (8)
8 Denmark (6)
9 Germany (9)
10 Ireland (10)