China entered Tuesday for the first time in the top 10 of the annual United Nations ranking of the most innovative countries for the first time on Tuesday, replacing Europe’s largest economy, Germany, while Beijing’s companies invest heavily in research and development.
Switzerland remained in the first place, a position it has maintained since 2011, followed by Sweden and the United States, while China ranked 10th in the 139-educated Global Innovation Index (GII) that ranks them on 78 indicators.
China is on track to become the largest investor in R&D as the private sector funding gap quickly closes, the IIG showed.
China contributed about a quarter of international patent applications in 2024, and remains the largest source of them, while the United States, Japan, and Germany (which together account for 40 per cent of total applications) recorded slight decreases.
Patent ownership is widely seen as an important sign of a country’s economic strength and industrial knowledge.
Prospects for global innovation are marred by declining investment, according to the survey.
R&D growth is expected to slow to 2.3 per cent in 2025 from 2.9 per cent last year, which was the lowest level since 2010, following the financial crisis.
Looking long-term, Germany should not be alarmed by its fall to the 11th, said the IG co-editor Sacha Wunsch-Vincent, who added that the new ratings do not reflect the impact of the Trump administration’s tariffs imposed on the United States.
“The challenge for Germany is how…, along with its strong status for decades as a truly powerful engine of industrial innovation, to become a power of digital innovation,” said Daren Tang, CEO of the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization, which publishes the innovation index.
The other countries in the top 10 on the list, behind the United States and ahead of China, were, in order of classification: South Korea, Singapore, Great Britain, Finland, the Netherlands, and Denmark.
About The Author
