In this year’s edition of the World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) Global Innovation Index, which ranks the innovation performance of economies and highlights their strengths and weaknesses, the Philippines moved up three slots, to the 50th out of 139 economies.
This is good news because this latest ranking is actually better compared to the government’s goal of placing 52nd this year under the updated Philippine Development Plan.
More impressive is being cited by the WIPO as among the countries in Southeast Asia, East Asia, and Oceania that made the greatest advances.
The GIL report showed that the Philippines ranking improved in four out of the seven pillars tracked by the index.
In infrastructure, the country’s ranking rose to 65th from 85th last year. Market sophistication saw a climb to 53rd from 77th. Performance in knowledge and technology output also improved to 38th from 42nd.
In human capital and research, the country’s performance dropped to 90th from 84th. The business sophistication pillar also saw a decline to the 40th spot from 37th last year, while in creative output, a slight drop to 61st from 60th was observed.
This marked improvement on a metric as impactful as innovation is certainly good news for the Philippines, and we can only hope that we can sustain the momentum until it is truly felt by the economy, and the population.*
