Five reasons why Switzerland is top in innovation

Switzerland is top in the world when it comes to innovation, according to an index by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). It’s the sixth year in a row that the Alpine nation’s come out on top. This year Sweden came in second place, followed by the UK. The index looks at institutions, human capital and research, infrastructure, market sophistication, and business sophistication –Switzerland is particularly strong in the last of these. Knowledge, technology and creative outputs, such as patents, trademarks and creative exports, like films, also play a role in the rankings. So what is Switzerland getting right? 1. A nation of inventors Switzerland scored particularly high in the category ‘knowledge and technology outputs’. One measure of this is patent applications – and the Swiss have the highest ratio of European patent applications to population. In 2015, Switzerland had 873 applications per million inhabitants, followed by the Netherlands with ...