Two places up: Germany is catching up on innovations

Germany has risen from 10th to 8th place in this year’s comparison of United Nations Innovative Countries. It is the best position for Germany since 2009.

The German economy is on the up when it comes to innovations. This is one of the results of the new comparison of innovation countries of the United Nations (UN). The Federal Republic improved two positions to eighth place, like today from the Report of the United Nations Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) emerged in Geneva. It is the highest ranking for Germany in 13 years.

Better investment climate

Investment climate in particular scored better this time around, but Germany also performed better than in the previous year’s index for online education and product development. In the “Human Capital and Research” subcategory, the German economy even managed to come in second, only South Korea was better here.

The UN organization also emphasized that government spending on research and development has recently increased in Germany, while it has fallen in the US and Japan. However, the political and private sector framework conditions for innovation in Germany were rated worse than a year ago.

Switzerland again in first place

Meanwhile, Switzerland was able to defend pole position again: for the twelfth time in a row, the alpine republic took first place. It is followed by the United States, Sweden, Great Britain, the Netherlands, South Korea and Singapore. Finland and Denmark occupy the ninth and tenth positions. Overall, the innovative power of 132 economies was examined using dozens of criteria.

Europe: a hotbed of innovations?

The regional perspective is also exciting: according to this, 15 of the top 25 innovative countries are in Europe. Twelve of the 39 European economies surveyed have improved their ranking this year, including, in addition to Germany (8th place), the Netherlands (5th place), Austria (17th place) and Estonia (18th place). ).

china on the rise

Meanwhile, China continued to rise up the rankings and now has its sights firmly set on the top ten. The People’s Republic traded places with France and thus improved from twelfth to eleventh place. China remains the only middle-income economy in the top 30.

Slower technical progress warning

In the report, WIPO expressed concern about stagnant global productivity and slowing technological progress, despite rising investment. “Therefore, in the future we must not only keep an eye on investments, but also pay more attention to how innovation affects the economy and society,” said WIPO Director General Daren Tang.