Korean media: South Korea ranks first in innovation capability, fourth in the US, where is China?
On September 10, the Korean media "Seoul Economic Daily" published an article stating that some analyses suggest that South Korea is the most innovative country in the world.
According to the Ministry of Science and ICT of South Korea and the Korea Institute for Science and Technology Evaluation, the European Commission recently released the "European Innovation Scoreboard (EIS) 2025," which compares and analyzes the innovation performance of EU member states, neighboring European countries, and major global competitors.
The innovation performance assessment covers four categories with 32 indicators: innovation environment, investment, innovation activities, and ripple effects. This year, five indicators were updated to reflect the policy context.
Based on the EU average score of 100 in 2018, South Korea's innovation performance this year scored 152.2, ranking first, far exceeding the EU average of 112.6 this year.
Following South Korea, Canada and China tied for third place with 133.4 points, while the United States and Australia exceeded the EU with 120 points.
Last year, South Korea was the only country to score over 140 points, ranking highest in the world.
South Korea's innovation performance increased by the highest percentage compared to last year, at 6.3 percentage points.
Following closely behind were China (6.0 percentage points) and Australia (3.8 percentage points), with most countries seeing an increase in their innovation performance.
On the other hand, Canada, the EU, and South Africa experienced a decline.
The European Commission commented, "South Korea has a relative advantage in trademark applications, design applications, and R&D spending in the business sector," and analyzed that South Korea has a relative disadvantage in introducing innovation in small and medium-sized enterprise business processes, launching product innovations, and publishing scientific papers.
Since 2018, South Korea's innovation performance has exceeded the EU for eight consecutive years.
Regarding the growth rate of innovation performance compared to 2018, China had the largest increase, at 44.7 percentage points, followed by South Korea at 25.8 percentage points.
The European Commission stated that China is surpassing the EU and the US and is rapidly catching up with South Korea in 2025.
Original: www.toutiao.com/article/1842876373370068/
Statement: This article represents the personal views of the author.