India dips 5 places in the global innovation index in a year

By Dr. Anand Kulkarni

Around the world innovation and knowledge is heralded as the way forward to drive economic progress and well being, and address critical societal challenges of health,environment and urbanisation. India is no exception to this. How does India fare on innovation?

The 2015 Global Innovation Index was recently released demonstrating in a comprehensive fashion how countries fare on the creation and deployment of knowledge and the key enablers of knowledge. Out of 141 countries India is “middle of the road” at the 81^st place, down from the 76^th place in 2014; various reasons are posited for this decline including data and methodological issues and the emergence of new entrants (Cornell University et al 2015).

India’s 81^st place masks some important strengths and weaknesses. On the positive side the innovation efficiency ranking, which measures a nation’s capacity to translate innovation inputs into outputs, has India in 31^st place. Despite its apparent weaknesses in many dimensions on the input side (Institutions at 104th place, business environment 130^th, regulatory environment 81^st, education 126th, Infrastructure 87^th place and environmental performance 126th), for example, India does manage to turn these constraints into solid performance on the knowledge output side (knowledge creation 59^th, Knowledge diffusion to the wider world 34^th place), and best of all number one in the world on the exports of communications, computer and information services. Years of investment in the computer and ICT services, especially through outsourcing and increasingly moving up the value chain is paying dividends.[su_pullquote]India does manage to turn these constraints into solid performance on the knowledge output side (knowledge creation 59th, Knowledge diffusion to the wider world 34th place), and best of all number one in the world on the exports of communications, computer and information services.[/su_pullquote]

However, there is much more to be done. Urgent attention on the input side in improving the business and regulatory environment, including ease of starting businesses which is strangled by red tape and addressing the complexity of taxation arrangements, is required as these are key inputs critical to further unlocking and leveraging India’s innate capabilities.

Another key challenge is to improve India’s environmental performance, which is languishing in the 126^th place. Dilemmas abound here in terms of economic development and job creation priorities versus the environment, and energy choices around renewables versus fossil fuel based sources. Yet there need not necessarily be tradeoff’s.  A well developed “ Green industries and Green jobs plan” would be most pertinent for India. This is also not to undersell the myriad of activities that are going on at national and local level to promote sustainability and the environment.

A further issue which is emerging from the rankings is that while India performs relatively well, 34^th place, on the diffusion of knowledge externally (e.g income from royalties, high technology exports), India fares far less well on knowledge absorption (99^th) which is its ability to identify and access knowledge from the rest of the world. Countries simply cannot undertake everything at home, particularly as science and technology becomes more costly, complex and requires multiple specialisations.  As such, being open to the world’s best ideas is important to India. The relatively weak performance on knowledge absorption appears to be related to the legacy of an inward looking innovation and science and technology orientation. It should be noted however, that Indian’s R&D performance is 44^th in the world and knowledge creation 59th (patents, articles), reflecting greater research output from institutions in recent years. Meshing India’s knowledge base with the world’s best would unleash even further gains.[su_pullquote align=”right”]A further issue which is emerging from the rankings is that while India performs relatively well, 34th place, on the diffusion of knowledge externally (e.g income from royalties, high technology exports), India fares far less well on knowledge absorption (99th) which is its ability to identify and access knowledge from the rest of the world.[/su_pullquote]

Similarly, and of growing importance is co-operation and collaboration at home. India performs quite well on clusters (geographic concentrations of firms and suppliers, particularly relevant to small-medium sized enterprises) at 25^th in the world. Policy makers in India have paid significant attention to the need to build size and scale and diffuse cost and risk through industry and enterprise clusters. However, India fares less well on university/industry research collaboration, which is 48^th in the world (although better than India’s overall 81^st ranking in the world). Improving the connectivity between education institutions and industry through industry focussed, applied research outcomes is the way forward.

Despite the very high reputation of India’s elite Institutes of Technology, the overall performance of education (126^th) and tertiary education (123^rd) remains problematic. Investing in quality improvement, facilities and ensuring wider access to education in the community, for both higher education and earlier years, is and ought to be a key priority.

Sustainable, value added job creation remains somewhat elusive. India is ranked 132^nd on knowledge workers. Therefore positive indicators on knowledge creation are not being translated into strong employment outcomes. One of the keys to this could be improving job specific training. India is ranked 98^th in the world on firms offering formal training.

To put India’s overall performance into further context, and using the oft cited BRICS countries as reference points, we note that India’s 81^stposition in the world, is still behind China (29^th), Brazil (70^th), Russian Federation (48^th) and South Africa (60^th).

In short, India’s performance, while comprising many positive features, does suggest that the job is far from complete!

Bibliography

Cornell University, INSEAD and WIPO Global Innovation Index 2015 Fontainbleau, Ithaca Geneva

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Dr Anand Kulkarni is Senior Manager, Planning and Research, at RMIT University, Australia