Israel ranked 2nd most innovative nation in world

Only the U.S. beat out Israel in a recent study evaluating countries based on their contributions to scientific progress.

By Aryeh Savir, TPS

Israel is the second most innovative nation in the world, ranked just after the U.S. and ahead of South Korea, according to a report in the U.K.’s Daily Mail.

Israel ranked ahead of six European countries which were in the top 10, with the United Kingdom sitting in 15th position, between Norway and Singapore. Chile came in last. No Arab countries made the list.

The U.S. is the overall winner with a score of 75.07 out of 100, and Israel followed with a 61.33.

The list was compiled by engineering firm RS Components.

The survey notes that while there is no single measure that captures global scientific progress, a nation’s commitment to scientific discovery can be assessed evaluating research and development spending, patents filed, and the volume of researchers and academic papers.

Israel is the world leader when it comes to spending on research and development (R&D) and the number of researchers in its population.

Researchers account for every 17 out of 1,000 employees in Israel. The Jewish state has registered 3,804 patents, published 1,133 scientific papers, and spends 4.25 percent of its GDP on (R&D).

Israel has previously received high scores in global innovation rankings.

The United Nations’ Global Innovation Index (GII) published in July 2018 showed that Israel ranked 11th globally, and first in the Northern Africa and Western Asia region, for the sixth consecutive year.

The GII ranks 127 economies based on 80 indicators, ranging from intellectual property filing rates to mobile application creation, education spending and scientific and technical publications.

Israel leads in the number of researchers, research and development (R&D) expenditures, venture capital deals, R&D funded by business enterprises, research talent in business enterprise, exports of information and communications technology services and Wikipedia edits, the survey found.