China Ranked Among the World's Top 20 Most Innovative Economies in 2018 GII

The 2018 Global Innovation Index (GII) rankings have recently been released jointly by Cornell University, INSEAD, and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). This year China continued its climb up the GII rankings and moved up to 17th position, rendering it for the first time within the world's top 20 most innovative economies.

As WIPO director general Francis Gurry pointed out, "China's rapid rise reflects a strategic direction set from the top leadership to developing world-class capacity in innovation and to moving the structural basis of the economy to more knowledge-intensive industries that rely on innovation to maintain competitive advantage."

In terms of the two sub-indices of GII, namely, the innovation input sub-Index and the innovation output sub-Index, China ranked second in human capital and research under the input sub-index, and topped in terms of number of patent applications filed, science and technology publications, and R&D personnel under the output sub-index.

The GII, published since 2007, is an annual ranking of countries and economies by their capacity for and performance in innovation. Its 80 indicators explore a wide landscape of innovation, ranging from intellectual property filing rates to mobile-application creation, education spending, and science and technology publications.

Rankings of the top 20 economies in 2018 GII

  (Source: China Patent Agent (H.K.) Ltd.)