How Does Japan Rank in Global Innovation?
Japan is placed 13th among the 133 economies featured in the 2024 Global Innovation Index (GII). The annual rankings are produced by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), which says it “leads the development of a balanced and effective global intellectual property ecosystem to promote innovation and creativity for a better and more sustainable future.”
The GII consists of about 80 indicators that aim to capture the multi-dimensional facets of innovation. WIPO said: “The GII finds that innovation investment slowed in 2023, in marked contrast to previous years, making the prospect for 2024-25 remarkably uncertain. But the outlook is not entirely cloudy. Technological progress and adoption in fields as diverse as supercomputing, connectivity, health, sanitation and green technologies continues unabated.”
Switzerland came top, Sweden second and the US third while Africa filled the bottom three places (Benin, Uganda and Tanzania).
Japan, which has barely moved in the rankings since 2020, sits 12th among the 51 high-income group economies and 4th among the 17 economies in South East Asia, East Asia and Oceania.
Japan’s 2024 ranking highlights are:
Highest:
- 6th Business sophistication
- 8th Market sophistication
- 12th Knowledge and technology outputs
- 13th Infrastructure
Lowest:
- 19th Human capital and research
- 22nd Creative outputs
- 23rd Institutions
“The 2024 edition of the GII focuses on social entrepreneurship, a model gaining prominence for its role in spearheading innovation aimed at addressing critical societal challenges. In recent years, an increasing cohort of entrepreneurs has embarked upon ventures that not only strive to achieve meaningful social impact, but also to be sustainable through market-based mechanisms. This innovative paradigm presents novel solutions in domains where traditional commercial enterprises have failed,” said GIII Editor Soumitra Dutta.
Global Innovation Index
The Global Innovation Index 2024, which is entitled “Unlocking the promise of social entrepreneurship,” takes the pulse of innovation against a background of steady but slow global economic growth, shrinking innovation finance and sluggish productivity. It reveals the most innovative economies in the world, ranking the innovation performance while highlighting innovation strengths and weaknesses.
Envisioned to capture as complete a picture of innovation as possible, the GII comprises measures including the political environment, education, infrastructure and knowledge creation of each economy.
The different metrics that the GII offers help to monitor performance and benchmark developments against economies within the same region or income group.
Global Innovation Index, 2024 rankings
| 1 | Switzerland | 67.5 | Highincome | 1 | Europe | 1 |
| 2 | Sweden | 64.5 | Highincome | 2 | Europe | 2 |
| 3 | USA | 62.4 | Highincome | 3 | Northern America | 1 |
| 4 | Singapore | 61.2 | Highincome | 4 | SE and East Asia, Oceania | 1 |
| 5 | UK | 61.0 | Highincome | 5 | Europe | 3 |
| 6 | South Korea | 60.9 | Highincome | 6 | SE and East Asia, Oceania | 2 |
| 7 | Finland | 59.4 | Highincome | 7 | Europe | 4 |
| 8 | Netherlands | 58.8 | Highincome | 8 | Europe | 5 |
| 9 | Germany | 58.1 | Highincome | 9 | Europe | 6 |
| 10 | Denmark | 57.1 | Highincome | 10 | Europe | 7 |
| 11 | China | 56.3 | Upper-middleincome | 1 | SE and East Asia, Oceania | 3 |
| 12 | France | 55.4 | Highincome | 11 | Europe | 8 |
| 13 | Japan | 54.1 | Highincome | 12 | SE and East Asia, Oceania | 4 |
| 14 | Canada | 52.9 | Highincome | 13 | Northern America | 2 |
| 15 | Israel | 52.7 | Highincome | 14 | Northern Africa and West Asia | 1 |