U.S. Falls out of Top 10 Innovating Countries

Following the release of the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) 2018 Science and Engineering Indicators report, the United States’ standing within the global manufacturing community continues to make headlines with the recent release of Bloomberg’s Innovation Index 2018. For the first time since the report began six years ago, the U.S. has fallen out of the Index’s Top 10 while South Korea and Sweden continue to maintain their first and second place rankings.

The rankings compared 80 different countries who were ranked on a scale of 1 to 100 based on the following criteria, all of which were equally weighted:

• Research and Development Intensity
• Manufacturing Value-Added
• Productivity
• High-Tech Density
• Tertiary efficiency
• Researcher Concentration
• Patent Activity

In 2018, the U.S. dropped from ninth place to eleventh, due to declines in the value-added manufacturing and tertiary efficiency categories. South Korea held on to its number one spot for the fifth year in a row, thanks to factors such as low-cost manufacturing exports and prioritized investment in Research and Development. Singapore and Japan rounded out Asia’s representation in the top 10, coming in at third and sixth place respectively, both improvements on their 2017 rankings. China also saw its ranking change this year, moving up two spots on the list to 19. “One common trait of the U.S., Korea and China is that people accept failure as part of the process,” explained Asian brokerage and investment group, CLSA’s Thai country head Prinn Panitchpakdi.

France switched places with the U.S., moving from 11 to place, joining fellow European countries Sweden, Germany, Switzerland, Finland and Denmark in the top 10. Israel rounded out the list, maintain the same position as last year at number 10.

For more information on the Innovation Index 2018, visit: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-22/south-korea-tops-global-innovation-ranking-again-as-u-s-falls