The Global Innovation Index No Longer Measures Innovation As We Do It
Yann Rousselot-Pailley, M. Sc.
Futurologist, Innovation Strategist, RDI Management expert, Doctorate Student
The Global Innovation Index (GII), developed by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), has long been a central tool for assessing countries' innovation performance. However, as the innovation landscape continues to evolve, the relevance of this index is becoming more and more of a concern. In the 2024 edition, the WIPO shows a decline in the number of patents being filed despite steady or even increased investments in R&D. This phenomenon, combined with surprising rankings, raises questions about the GII’s ability to reflect the state of innovation across different nations accurately.
The Decline in Patents: An Obsolete Indicator of Innovation
One of the most evident signs of the GII's disconnection from reality is the significant decline in the number of patents filed by governments and corporations despite steady or increasing investments in R&D.
Historically, patents were seen as the primary indicator of innovation and a crucial tool for protecting intellectual property. However, this trend is shifting as companies and research institutions recognize the limitations of patents in today's fast-paced technological landscape.
Many organizations opt out of the patent process due to its complexity, high costs, and the lengthy timeframes involved, which can be counterproductive in industries that prioritize rapid innovation cycles. Additionally, businesses are increasingly turning to alternative strategies like trade secrets, open-source collaborations, and coopetition—where competitors collaborate to accelerate technological advancements—because these approaches provide greater flexibility and faster routes to market. This move away from patent dependency highlights a broader shift towards open innovation, where sharing knowledge and technology becomes a catalyst for growth, reducing the need for the traditional barriers that patents once represented.
Unexpected Rankings
Another example of the GII’s disconnect with the reality of innovation is evident in its rankings, which sometimes appear counterintuitive. For example, seeing countries like Cyprus ranked higher than Saudi Arabia—a nation that has made remarkable strides in technology investment and innovation— or the absence of China in the top 10 casts doubt on the accuracy of the index's methodology.
This disparity is largely due to a Western-centric bias in defining and measuring innovation, focusing heavily on patents, scientific publications, and traditional R&D outputs. Such metrics often overlook the unique dynamics of top-down innovation ecosystems prevalent in countries like China and Saudi Arabia, where state-led initiatives and institutional support play a dominant role in driving technological advancements.
In these nations, innovation is frequently characterized by large-scale infrastructure projects, strategic investments in emerging technologies, and a focus on social innovation that rapidly translates into societal and economic impact.
The GII's methodology fails to adequately account for these differences, underestimating the speed of technology adoption and the transformative role of government policies in fostering innovation.
This oversight reveals a need for more globally inclusive metrics to capture diverse innovation models beyond the traditional Western framework, acknowledging the varied pathways through which countries develop and implement innovative solutions.
The Lack of Metrics for Open Innovation and Coopetition
Today, innovation dynamics are increasingly driven by coopetition, where companies collaborate with competitors to co-create and develop groundbreaking innovations.
This approach has become a defining feature across multiple sectors, reshaping the landscape of industries like telecommunications, banking, automotive, aerospace, and digital technology.
In the financial sector, for instance, the rise of open banking has led institutions to work together to establish common standards for data sharing and security, even as they compete fiercely on customer offerings and services.
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Similarly, telecom companies collaborate on building shared infrastructure for 5G networks, which reduces costs and speeds up deployment while still competing for market share.
In the automotive industry, car manufacturers partner on platforms for electric and autonomous vehicles to drive standardization and innovation, yet they maintain rivalry in branding and consumer experience.
The aerospace sector has also seen major competitors join forces to develop eco-friendly aircraft technologies.
In the digital realm, tech giants like Google, Microsoft, and IBM frequently collaborate on open-source projects, pushing the boundaries of cloud computing and AI while vying for leadership in the digital ecosystem.
This coopetition strategy not only accelerates the pace of innovation but also distributes risks and leverages collective expertise, a concept further explored in the principles outlined in my book Play Nice , highlighting the limitations of traditional innovation metrics that fail to capture these collaborative efforts.
The Persistent Gap Between R&D and Commercial Innovation
A significant criticism of the GII lies in its conflating R&D investments with actual innovation. Although R&D is undeniably a crucial component of the innovation process, it does not inherently guarantee commercial value creation. Too often, organizations struggle to bridge the gap between their research efforts and tangible innovation outcomes.
This disconnect is partly driven by a societal mindset that glorifies academic research—where holding a doctorate can be seen as prestigious, even if the research yields limited practical results—while simultaneously stigmatizing entrepreneurial endeavors that involve trial, error and occasional failure.
Society glorifies researchers for their titles, yet undervalues entrepreneurs who take real risks to drive innovation.
Entrepreneurs who take risks and innovate sometimes fail to face unwarranted skepticism despite being the ones who frequently drive real-world impact. To truly foster innovation, we must shift our focus toward celebrating those who attempt to bring ideas to market, regardless of the outcome, and emphasize rewarding inventions that achieve successful adoption.
By valuing the courage to innovate and recognizing the commercial success of those who translate research into actionable, widely adopted solutions, we can create a culture that bridges the divide between R&D and meaningful innovation, as discussed in my book.
Measuring Innovation
Since the Oslo Manual, the Global Innovation Index is the gold standard for measuring global innovation. However, it faces increasing criticism for its disconnection from contemporary innovation practices. To remain relevant, the GII must evolve by integrating indicators of coopetition, open innovation, and commercial value creation to reflect better the true nature of how innovation is practiced today. Other indices, such as the European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) and the Knowledge Assessment Methodology (KAM) by the World Bank, propose more nuanced approaches to evaluating innovation. These frameworks emphasize inter-company collaborations, innovations' social and environmental impact, and the conversion of R&D efforts into tangible and measurable outcomes. WIPO could definitely learn from that indicator to come up with a new version of the GII that is more adapted to today's ways to innovate.
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Chief Researcher & Distinguished Engineer at BT
1 个月We need entirely new methods to capture innovation
Chief Researcher & Distinguished Engineer at BT
1 个月Good points