SINGAPORE has moved up to seventh in the latest World Intellectual Property Organisation’s Global Innovation index (GII), leading the South-east Asian region.

Elsewhere in the region, the Philippines is a middle-income economy with one of the fastest innovation performance to date. Indonesia also achieved its best position since 2012, rising to 75th, leading in entrepreneurship policies and culture.

Switzerland retained the crown from 2021, as the US moved up a spot to second and Sweden down a spot to third. Research and development (R&D), and investments that drive innovation have continued to thrive in 2021, despite the pandemic.

Now challenges are emerging in translating these investments into impact. An indicator of increased innovation – productivity growth – has stalled according to GII. Technology progress and adoption is also showing signs of slowing.

“While innovation investments surged in 2020 and 2021, the outlook for 2022 is clouded not just by global uncertainties but continued underperformance in innovation-driven productivity,” said Darren Tang, director general, World Intellectual Property Organisation.

Globally, top corporate R&D expenditure increased almost 10 per cent to over US$900 billion in 2021, driven by infocommunication technology, pharmaceuticals and biotechnology among others. Venture capital deals were booming in 2021, rising 46 per cent y-o-y according to GII, with Latin America and Caribbean; and Africa regions seeing the strongest growth.

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But venture capital outlook is less exuberant in 2022, with investors being more circumspect and cautious about funding startups.

“This is why we need to pay more attention to not just investing in innovation, but how it translates into economic and social impact. Quality and value will become as critical to success as quantity and scale,” said Tang.

Looking ahead, there are two possible innovation waves, a digital innovation wave built on supercomputing, artificial intelligence and automation; and a deep science innovation wave built on breakthroughs in current technologies. GII warns that it will take time for these waves to materialise, with obstacles in adoption and diffusion.

Bruno Lanvin, co-editor of GII and co-founder of Portulans Institute said: “Productivity is at the core of what we want our societies and economies to be tomorrow, in particular if we want to combine higher levels of equality while using natural resources more sensibly”.