Singapore slipped to 8th spot in global innovation ranking

Here are its weaknesses.

According to the Global Innovation Index 2013, Singapore is ranked 8th, down five positions from its 3rd place in 2012. Singapore is one of the four economies at the efficient frontier.

It shows strengths across the board in the Input Sub-Index, where it ranks 1st: Institutions (7th), Human capital and research (3rd, after Finland and the Republic of Korea), Infrastructure (6th), Market sophistication (5th), and Business sophistication (1st).

It ranks only 18th in the Output Sub-Index, however, reaching the lowestefficiency ratio among the top 10 (121st): Knowledge and technology
outputs (11th) and Creative outputs(40th).

The adjustments made to the GII framework reveals Singapore’s important relative weaknesses; had the 2012 GII framework been kept intact in 2013, Singapore would have kept its 3rd position in the GII rankings.

A total of 20 indicators are new or were adjusted this year; Singapore has good showings in 12 of them, including 1st place in logistics performance,
royalties and license fees payments, and high-tech and medium-high-tech output; and it ranks among the top 20 in the ease of resolving insolvency (2nd), protecting investors (2nd), paying taxes (5th), starting a business (8th), and getting credit (12th) as well as for creative goods exports (10th), GERD
performed by business enterprise (18th), patent families filed in at least three offices (18th), and the QS university ranking average score of top 3 universities (19th).

The areas in which Singapore performs less well are scientific and technical publications (27th), royalties and license fees receipts (27th), the citable documents H index (29th), the Madrid system trademark registrations by country of origin (35th), printing and publishing output (71st), and communications, computer and information services imports (90th, with 16.5%) and exports (108th, with 6.5%).

The GII 2013, in its 6th edition this year, is co-published by Cornell University, INSEAD, and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO, a specialized agency of the United Nations).