The German economy is highly innovative. This was proven once again by the “Global Innovation Index”, which is published annually by the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). In this year’s comparison, Germany moved up two positions from 10th to 8th place – its best ranking since 2009. Switzerland took first place in the ranking for the twelfth year running. The study examines the innovative strength of a total of 132 national economies.
Germany came out better in 2022 than last year in terms of investment especially, as well as in education and the development of online products. In the sub-category “human capital and research”, the German economy even reached second place (behind South Korea). In contrast to the USA and Japan, for example, government spending on research and development has risen in Germany, WIPO reports. The political and private-sector conditions in Germany, on the other hand, were rated worse than in the previous year.
In a global comparison, it is noteworthy that 15 of the top 25 countries are European economies. Of these, eleven other countries besides Germany moved up the ranking, including the Netherlands (5th place), Austria (17th place), and Estonia (18th place).
Globally, however, WIPO warned of a slowdown in technological progress. WIPO Director General Daren Tang said: “We must therefore not only keep an eye on investments in the future, but also pay more attention to how innovation impacts the economy and society.”
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