The world's most innovative countries ranking

• Switzerland - the most innovative country, for the 14th consecutive year

Switzerland has been designated in 2024, for the 14th consecutive year, the most innovative country in the world, according to the Global Innovation Index (IGI), published by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and taken over by visualcapitalist.com.

The IGI ranks 133 economies based on their innovation capabilities and performance, and this year's report highlights changes in global innovation leadership, with a focus on emerging economies that are challenging traditional leaders.

The IGI measures each economy based on seven pillars of innovation, which comprise a total of 78 indicators. The seven pillars are: Knowledge and technology results; Human capital and research; Business sophistication; Market sophistication; Creative results; Infrastructure; Institutions. Overall IGI scores are based on the average scores of these pillars.

• Switzerland, Sweden, USA - Top 3 in terms of innovation

The first 20 places in the IGI ranking look like this: Switzerland, with a score of 67.5; Sweden - 64.5; USA - 62.4; Singapore - 61.2; Great Britain - 61; South Korea - 60.9; Finland -59.4; Netherlands - 58.8; Germany - 58.1; Denmark - 57.1; China - 56.3; France - 55.4; Japan - 54.1; Canada - 52.9; Israel - 52.7; Estonia - 52.3; Austria - 50.3; Hong Kong - 50.1; Ireland - 50; Luxembourg - 49.1.

Like last year, the US ranks third in the IGI ranking. Although the United States ranked highest in terms of market and business sophistication, the overall score was reduced by the score for infrastructure, the cited source notes.

A key theme of this year's IGI is "over-performance" in innovation, which looks at countries with performances above expectations in relation to their level of development. The top 3 in this sense include India, Moldova and Vietnam. All three of these economies have outperformed since 2011.

IGI 2024 also provides insight into the current state of global innovation. The most important aspects highlighted in this regard are:

- Technological progress: the rate of progress in green technologies lags behind the average growth of the decade. A key challenge in this segment is reducing the power consumption of supercomputers.

- Technology adoption: 5G, robotics and electric vehicles are all seeing increased penetration levels.

- Socio-economic impact: IGI reports mixed progress, partly due to the Covid-19 pandemic. For example, poverty levels are higher than in 2018, while life expectancy remains at 2015 levels.