Which are the most innovative economies in 2021?

WIPO published its annual Global Innovation Index for 2021 where the level of innovations of most than 130 countries is evaluated.

This year the most innovative nation is Switzerland followed by Sweden, the US, the UK and South Korea.

Top three of the most innovative countries by region is as follow:

Bulgaria, as an EU Member State, is at 35th position in this index, but more interestingly is the fact that the country is second in the list, after China, from the group of countries with an upper middle-income level that have performance above expectations.

The Global Innovation Index is very indicative how well developed and competitive the relevant countries are. It is no surprising that the most developed countries are at the top of the list.

The good news for Bulgaria is that the country is in the first group of countries with positive perspective for future development in the innovation area.

One of the reason for this is that the software industry in Bulgaria has been growing year after year with an impressive pace (the growth for 2020 is about 20% compared with 2019 despite the pandemic). The other reason is that more and more foreign companies open R&D departments.

An additional progress in the Index, however, will require better connection between the business, scientific organizations and universities as well as better access to startup financing.