Each year INSEAD team up with WIPRO and Cornell to produce a global innovation index that attempts to rank the nations of the world in terms of their innovative capabilities.  The index takes into account various factors, such as educational possibilities, ease of starting a business and raising money, legal framework and scientific output.

The project fits into the Zeitgeist of trying to produce league tables for everything.  The latest project of this kind is the European innovation index produced by the European Commission.  Perhaps unsurprisingly, many of those who score well in the EC report also did well in the INSEAD index.  Countries like the UK, Switzerland and Norway all ranked highly.

Whereas the INSEAD index considered a wide range of indicators, the EC report seems largely based around science and technology orientated indicators.  Nonetheless, despite the different inputs, the European Innovation Scoreboard concurred with the INSEAD Global Innovation Index in finding Switzerland the most innovative country in Europe.

Germany struggled, due in large part to weaknesses in education and startups.  Eastern Europe continues to be a weak spot in the EU however, with countries across the region scoring poorly.

Both league tables highlight a longstanding issue with European innovation however, in that the continent is fantastic at doing science, but much less so at commercializing that science and bringing technologies to market at scale.

Suffice to say, with any league table of this nature, there will be many who are somewhat disgruntled with the methodology used by the researchers.  For instance, a group led by Charles Edquist of Lund University, has criticized the index as a wholly blunt instrument that massively over simplifies what is an inherently complex topic in order to produce one unified ‘innovation’ score for each country.

They argue that the equal weighting that the Commission assigns to each of the 27 sub-indicators is unrealistic.  In reality each of the 27 measures different things and with varying degrees of importance to the innovation process.  As such, in reality the index is best taken with a large pinch of salt rather than allowing a nation to laud (or bemoan) its efforts.

What they might be useful for however is in honing in on specific areas where countries thrive or flounder.  Anyway, check out the index and see how your country performs.