February 5th that on February 3rd, South Korea returned to the top of the list of the latest innovation index released by Bloomberg News, while the United States fell out of the top 10, and most of the top 10 countries in the list were European countries.
According to the report, South Korea regained the championship from Germany, which fell to fourth place.
In the nine years since the index was released, the Asian country ranked first in seven years.
Singapore and Switzerland rose one place each this year to second and third respectively.
This index of Bloomberg is based on seven average weighted indicators.
These seven indicators include R&D expenditure, manufacturing capacity and concentration of high-tech listed companies.
The 2021 ranking reflects the global status quo that has led to innovation to be prominent due to the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.
“In the year of pandemic, the importance of innovation fundamentals is increasing in the face of the urgency of climate change,” said Kathleen Mann, chief economist at Citibank Group worldwide.
She also said that “innovation is usually measured by new ideas, new products and services”, but the real measure of success is their “communication and adoption”.
According to the report, most of Bloomberg’s data comes from before the outbreak of the pandemic.
Still, it’s worth noting that many of the top-ranked countries — like South Korea, Germany and Israel — are also global leaders in some areas of the fight against the pandemic, whether in tracking close contacts and quickly getting vaccinated.
The pandemic also highlights a different breakthrough that is more about policy and organization than technology or research, says U.S. economist Paul Romer.
“We should recognize that the existing metrics do not reflect some important aspects of innovation,” said Romer, who is a professor at NYU’s Stern School of Business.
Wuhan officials are proving for the first time that it is feasible to test 10 million residents of a city for the novel coronavirus in a few weeks.
This is a very important public health innovation.”
According to the report, South Korea’s return to the top of the list is mainly due to the increase in patent activity (which ranks first in this regard) and its excellent performance in research and development and manufacturing.
As the world’s two largest economies, the United States and China account for a large part of the world’s innovation.
But their rankings have declined this year.
The Bloomberg Innovation Index was first released in 2013, when it ranked first in the United States.
This year, it fell two places to 11th this year.
“The United States used to be an undisputed leader in science and engineering, but now our leading role has diminished,” the National Science Council said in a 2020 report.
The United States has a low score in higher education, although some universities in the United States are world-famous.
The U.S.’s poor performance in this regard may be exasperated by the obstruction faced by foreign students (first due to the Trump administration’s visa policy and later by the coronavirus pandemic). Foreign students usually perform well in science and technology classes.
In his campaign, the new U.S. President Biden promised to invest $300 billion in research and development and breakthrough technology to revitalize American manufacturing.
He called this policy “American Innovation”.
China fell one place to 16th on the list.
China and the United States are in strife over some key aspects of innovation policy.
Tom Olek, chief economist of Bloomberg’s economic department, said: “The increasing competition between the United States and China is reshaping the innovation landscape.
In the case of the United States, the fear that intellectual property rights will be taken away by a geopolitical opponent is leading to a weakening support for an open innovation system.
In the case of China, the fear of foreign technology outages is accelerating investment in domestic research and development capabilities.
According to the report, as China’s economy recovers rapidly from the downturn caused by the coronavirus pandemic, its economy has established itself in front of competitors.
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