China has ranked among the top ten most innovative countries in the world for the first time, replacing Germany, Reuters reports. This is shown by the annual UN Global Innovation Index (GII), which covers 139 economies and evaluates 78 different indicators, News.bg reports.
The first place in the ranking is again occupied by Switzerland, followed by Sweden and the United States. China occupies 10th position, and Germany is in 11th place. Other countries in the top 10 include South Korea, Singapore, the UK, Finland, the Netherlands and Denmark.
According to the report, Beijing is rapidly closing in on the leaders in research and development (R&D) investment and is already the source of about a quarter of international patent applications in 2024, while the US, Japan and Germany together generated 40% of global applications, marking a slight decline.
Despite China's success, the outlook for global innovation remains uncertain: R&D investment growth is expected to slow to 2.3% in 2025, the lowest level since 2010. WIPO Director-General Darren Tang said that the challenge for Germany is to combine strong industrial innovation capacity with developments in the digital sector.