ITIF and Kauffman Foundation Unveil Global Innovation Policy Report: Ranking 55 Nations’ Capacities for Economic Growth

In the midst of intense global competition for innovation supremacy among countries, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation released today one of the most comprehensive assessments ever undertaken of countries' innovation policies. The Global Innovation Policy Index benchmarks the effectiveness of the innovation policies of 55 countries - including virtually all EU, OECD, APEC and BRIC economies - and provides a framework for making effective policies. The Policy Index assesses the countries against 84 indicators grouped across 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 technology; 6) government procurement; and 7) high-skill immigration.

The Index ranks countries as either upper tier, upper-mid tier, lower-mid tier or lower tier on each of the seven policy areas and overall, and highlights best practices in policy development among these countries that other nations can learn from. Only Canada and Singapore placed in the upper tier on all seven innovation policy indicators, while the United States placed in the top tier in every category except openness to high-skill immigration. The report ranks 18 countries as upper tier, 15 as upper-mid tier, 13 as lower-mid tier, and nine as lower tier in innovation policy.

"Countries are engaged in a fierce race for global innovation advantage," ITIF President Robert Atkinson said, "but they can compete in ways that either maximize their innovation capacity while producing positive spillovers for the world, such as by investing in research or education, or compete by less effective policies that often distort global markets through 'innovation mercantilism.' The Index highlights countries' 'good' innovation policies and provides a scorecard of how effectively leading countries are adopting them."

The report says that countries will not be able to achieve sustainably high rates of innovation if their governments have not implemented a broad range of innovation-enabling policies that create the conditions in which organizations throughout their economies can successfully innovate.

"We hope the Innovation Policy Index helps countries better understand the strengths and weaknesses of their national innovation ecosystem compared with their global peers, while highlighting scores of best practices in innovation policy through which countries can learn from one another," said Robert Litan, vice president of research and policy, Kauffman Foundation. "The report clearly shows how openness to domestic market competition is a critical element of fostering an entrepreneurship-friendly environment in countries around the world."

Read the full report at www.kauffman.org/innovationpolicy or www.itif.org/globalinnovationpolicy.