SA second most innovative country in Africa

Bloomberg has published a list of the 50 most innovative countries in the world with South Africa edging its way on, in last place, behind Tunisia in Africa.

To compile the list, Bloomberg Rankings examined more than 200 countries and sovereign regions, ranking the countries on a scale of 0 to 100% on seven factors, all accounting for a specific percentage of the final score.

These factors included research and development intensity (20%); productivity (20%); high-tech density (20%); researcher concentration (20%); manufacturing capability (10%); tertiary education levels (5%); and patent activity (5%).

The United states took the top spot, ranking first for its number of publicly-listed high tech companies (in such fields as aerospace and defense, biotechnology, hardware, software, semiconductors, Internet software & services and renewable energy).

South Korea (ranked 2nd) had top position in terms of patent activity (patent filings per million population and per $1 million R&D spent), while Finland (4th) took top spot for having the most R&D researchers per one million people.

Luxembourg (16th) was the most productive country listed, measured as GDP per employed person, per hour worked.

Canada (17th) had the highest tertiary efficiency out of all countries researched. This factor looks at the enrollment and graduation figures of tertiary institutions – as well as the ratios that go into the labour force.

Israel (32nd) ranked top in R&D intensity, measured as investment in R&D as a percentage of the total GDP.

South Africa (50th) and Tunisia (40th) were the only African countries ranked on the list.

South Africa’s highest-ranked factors were in research and development intensity and high-tech density (35th overall), but put up a poor showing in tertiary efficiency (95th).

The 50 most innovative countries in the world

You can see the full list on Bloomberg

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