The Global Innovation Policy Index

Countries worldwide are engaged in a fierce race for global innovation advantage. The leading countries have implemented innovation strategies that coordinate their policies towards trade and foreign direct investment, science and R&D, information and communications technology, intellectual property rights, government procurement, tax, and education and high-skill immigration in an integrated approach designed to drive economic growth through innovation. However, to maximize global innovation, countries will have to implement these policies in ways that maximize their innovation capacity without distorting global trade. To accomplish this, countries’ policies must be predicated on transparent, non-discriminatory, market-based principles that embrace both global standards and the free flow of talent, capital, information, products, services, and technologies.

The Global Innovation Policy Index, produced by ITIF in conjunction with the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, assesses the effectiveness of the innovation policies of 55 countries using 84 indicators grouped into seven core innovation policy areas: 1) trade and foreign direct investment; 2) science and R&D; 3) domestic market competition; 4) intellectual property rights; 5) information and communications technology; 6) government procurement; and 7) high-skill immigration. The Index, which ranks almost all EU, OECD, APEC, and BRIC economies, categorizes countries as either upper tier, upper-mid tier, lower-mid tier, or lower tier on each of the seven core innovation policy areas and overall, and highlights best practices in innovation policy development amongst these countries that other nations can learn from.