US Falls Out of Top 10 Most Innovative Countries

The US has been dropped from the top 10 most innovative countries for the first time since the Bloomberg Innovation Index began six years ago.

Now ranked 11th, education was cited as the primary reason for the fall. STEM fields are considered the most important in terms of innovation but the number of new science and engineering graduates has dipped, with a low proportion of STEM majors among the US workforce. Value-added manufacturing also dipped from the previous year.

Robert Atkinson, President of the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation in Washington DC stated, “I see no evidence to suggest that this trend will not continue. Other nations have responded with smart, well-funded innovation policies like better R&D tax incentives, more government funding for research, more funding for technology commercialization initiatives.”

South Korea ranked first for the fifth year in a row, with valuable companies like Samsung Electronics Co. It ranked first in patent activity and second in R&D intensity as well as manufacturing added-value. Despite these top scores, it ranked just 21st in productivity.

Sweden came in second place. Singapore jumped from sixth to third place, largely due to ranking first in the tertiary-efficiency category. China moved from 21st to 19th with an increasing number of science and engineering graduates and with companies like Huawai Technologies Co gaining an increasing number of patents. France rose two spots to ninth and Ireland moved up three spots to 13th.

The Bloomberg Innovation Index ranks the countries using seven factors:

  • R&D expenditure as a percentage of GDP;
  • Productivity showing GDP and GNI per employed person;
  • Concentration of high-tech public companies;
  • Manufacturing added-value;
  • Tertiary efficiency;
  • Patent activity per million population;
  • Researcher concentration per million population.
Recent Posts