New Delhi : Government and industry must synergise their efforts to promote R&D and innovation in the country. NITI Aayog will join hands with CII (Confederation of Indian Industry) to drive innovation in India. This was stated by Mr Ratan P Watal, Principal Adviser, NITI Aayog & Member Secretary Economic Advisory Council to Prime Minister at the India launch of Global Innovation Index 2018 in New Delhi on Wednesday, August 8.
India’s rank on the Global Innovation Index (GII) has improved from 60th last year to 57th this year. India has been consistently climbing the GII ranking for the past two years. Its position improved from 80 in 2015 to 66 in 2016 after sliding for successive five years. This year’s report shows that India has been constantly outperforming on innovation relative to its level of development for many years in a row. Positioning in the top half of the GII ranking, India ranks well in several important innovation inputs, including graduates in science and engineering, expenditures of major R&D-intensive global companies, and capital formation.
The launch was organized by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) – one of the founding partners of GII along with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), in collaboration with the Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP).
Launching the index, Mr Watal said, “The culture of spending on research and development is growing in India and we are seeing the results in the form of improvements in rankings such as the GII.” Taking a close look at this report also served another purpose – of providing an opportunity to look at examples from similar economies from across the world and understand how they effected change in their countries, he said.
Dr Anil Kakodkar, Former Chairman, Atomic Energy Commission, and author of the India chapter in the report underlined that “we must devise strategies to address our energy deficit, to ensure sustainable domestic energy supply”. He also stressed on innovative ways to tackle the country’s energy problems.
Mr Naresh Prasad, Assistant Director General, World Intellectual Property Organization, said that GII enabled countries to compare their innovation performances and benchmark with others, he also added that WIPO would like to work with India to build its innovation ecosystem. He thanked CII for its sustained work in driving innovation.
Switzerland, Netherlands, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Singapore, the United States of America, Finland and Denmark lead the 2018 rankings in GII which saw a global launch last month at the Cornell Tech campus in New York. Co-published by Cornell University, Insead and WIPO, the GII acts as a source of insight into the multidimensional facets of innovation-driven growth. In 2018, the other partners of GII included PwC’s Strategy &, the National Industry Confederation (CNI) and Brazilian Service of Support to Micro and Small Enterprises (Sebrae).
Among the indicators of innovation outputs, India earns excellent positions in ICT services exports, where it ranks first in the world, and labour productivity growth, where it is 4th globally. India is 2nd among middle-income economies (after China) in the indicators that capture the quality of the innovation inputs and outputs. This year, its rankings are edging slightly closer to those of China, testifying the important efforts that the country is making in boosting innovation. In particular, the country ranks well in the quality of its scientific publication and local universities, because of higher scores for the Indian Institute of Science Bangalore and the Indian Institute of Technology. The GII indicators are grouped into innovation inputs and outputs. Innovation inputs capture the efforts made by the country to boost innovation. Innovation outputs measure the results of these efforts in terms of scientific publications, patents, trademarks, production, exports and other outputs.
Over the past three years, India has improved its ranking in innovation outputs, reaching the 57th position this year, up from the 58th in 2017 and the 59th in 2016. Innovation inputs also improve, ranking 63rd up from 66th and 72nd positions in the past two years. India is also becoming increasingly efficient in translating its innovation efforts (inputs) into more and more varied outputs. This is evidenced in the trend of the Innovation Efficiency Ratio, in which it ranks 49th in 2018, improving from the 53rd and the 63rd positions in 2017 and 2016.
GII 2018 Theme: “Energizing the World with Innovation”
The GII theme this year is “Energizing the World with Innovation.” Access to energy is a prerequisite for improving standards of living, economic development and – in the context of the Global Innovation Index – a necessary ingredient to innovation. It is estimated that by 2050 the world will require twice as much energy as it needs today, including in regions that currently have no access to energy sources or energy networks. At the same time, current approaches to energy supply are unsustainable and the need to reduce emissions requires a shift towards cleaner and more efficient methods to produce energy through traditional sources as well as to ramp up the use of renewable sources.
The GII 2018 analyses the energy innovation landscape of the next decade and identify possible new technological breakthroughs and innovative approaches along with their sources at the country, region, or firm level. The GII 2018 also explores innovations in energy production, energy storage, energy transport and distribution, and energy consumption.
About the Global Innovation Index :
The Global Innovation Index (GII) aims to capture the multi-dimensional facets of innovation and provide the tools that can assist in tailoring policies to promote long-term output growth, improved productivity, and job growth. The GII helps to create an environment in which innovation factors are continually evaluated. It provides a key tool and a rich database of detailed metrics for economies, which in 2018 encompasses 126 economies, representing 90.8% of the world’s population and 96.3% of global GDP.
The Global Innovation Index 2018 (GII), in its 11th edition this year, will be released on July 10, and continues to be co-published by Cornell University, INSEAD, and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO, an agency of the United Nations). The core of the GII Report consists of a ranking of world economies’ innovation capabilities and results. Over the last ten years, the GII has established itself as a leading reference on innovation. Understanding in more detail the human aspects behind innovation is essential for the design of policies that help promote economic development and richer innovation-prone environments locally. Recognizing the key role of innovation as a driver of economic growth and prosperity, and the need for a broad horizontal vision of innovation applicable to developed and emerging economies, the GII includes indicators that go beyond the traditional measures of innovation such as the level of research and development.
