On September 29, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) released the Global Innovation Index 2022 (hereinafter referred to as the "Report"), and China ranks 11th, up one place from 2021. Since 2013, China's global innovation index ranking has steadily risen for 10 years, ranking first among 36 middle- and high-income economies.

Based on innovation input and output, there are 81 sub-indicators of 7 categories set in the "Report", including policy environment, human capital and research, infrastructure, market maturity, business maturity, knowledge and technology output, and creativity output, in order to comprehensively evaluate and rank the innovation ecosystem performance of 132 economies worldwide.

China's performance in the report is mainly included as follows:

First, 9 sub-indicators rank first in the world. For innovation input, 3 sub-indicators rank first, including the domestic market scale, the proportion of companies providing formal training, and the scale of reading, mathematics and science PISA (Program for International Student Assessment). In terms of innovation output, 6 sub-indicators rank first, in which the number of domestic patent applications, the number of domestic utility model applications, the number of applications for domestic industrial design, the number of domestic trademark applications, the growth of labor force output, and the proportion of creative product exports in total trade are included.

Second, the indicators of high-quality development of intellectual property rights performed well. In 2021, the total value of Chinese brands reached 1.9 trillion dollars, a year-on-year growth of 7%, ranking 18th in the world; the venture capital investment reached 94 billion dollars, an increase of 84% year-on-year, ranking 16th. In 2020, the export value of high-tech products reached 757.7 billion dollars, a year-on-year increase of 6%, ranking 4th; the proportion of high-tech manufacturing was 48.1% in the manufacturing industry, an increase of 1% over 2018, ranking 14th; intellectual property income reached 8.9 billion dollars, an increase of 34%.

In the ranking of the world's "Best Technology Clusters" this year, China has the same number of TOP100 technology clusters as USA for the first time, with 21 in both countries. Last year, the number in China was 19. There are 10 clusters in Germany and 5 in Japan. Compared with the year before, 3 Chinese clusters with the largest increases in the 2022 cluster rankings are Zhengzhou (up 15), Qingdao (up 12) and Xiamen (up 12).

Technology clusters are those geographic areas with the highest density of inventors and scientific authors. It is indicated in the Report that 4 of the world’s top 5 tech clusters are located in East Asia — 1 in Japan, 2 in China, 1 in South Korea, and the fifth in the United States. Tokyo-Yokohama is the largest cluster, followed by Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou (China), Beijing (China), Seoul (South Korea) and San Jose-San Francisco (US), and Shanghai-Suzhou (China) ranks 6th.

China's tech clusters showed the largest growth in technology output, with a median output increase of 13.9%, the fastest-growing clusters are Qingdao and Wuhan, respectively growing by 25.2% and 21.9%.

The Report also ranks tech clusters based on the indicator of tech intensity or tech density (i.e. share of patents and scientific publications divided by population). It is indicated from results that Cambridge of in UK and Eindhoven in Netherlands are the most technologically intensive technology clusters, followed by Daejeon of South Korea, San Jose-San Francisco of USA and Oxford of UK.

The Report describes two potential innovation waves: the first is the digital age innovation wave based on supercomputing, AI and automation, which tends to have a full impact on productivity in all sectors and research fields; the second is a wave of deep scientific innovation built on biotechnology, nanotechnology, new materials and other scientific breakthroughs, revolutionizing innovation in fields of health, food, environment and mobility which are of critical importance to society.

From WenHui Daily

September 30th, 2022