Sri Lanka has been ranked 82nd, in a global innovation index issued by Insead, an international business school, behind India but ahead of other key south Asian countries.

Switzerland topped this year's ranking in the Global Innovation Index (GII), while Sweden took second place and Singapore third.

The GII 2011 ranks 125 economies across the world in terms of their innovation capabilities and results and highlights those that achieve more innovation outputs surmounting weaknesses from the input side – the efficient innovators – and those that lag behind in fulfilling their innovation potential.

Joining Insead for the report were Alcatel-Lucent, Booz & Company, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a specialised agency of the United Nations.

"Today the whole world is talking about innovation in all forms starting from industry to government to society," said Naushad Forbes, chairman of the CII Innovation Council 2011-12 and director of Forbes Marshall.

"After the recent economic slowdown the focus has shifted clearly towards the developing regions not only in terms of a booming potential market but also a hot spot for frugal innovations.

"Measuring this shift is important to know how we are doing. The GII is a starting point to do that and unquestionably in the right direction."

The Global Innovation Index is computed as an average of the scores across inputs describing the enabling environment for innovation and outputs measuring actual achievements in innovation.

China (29th) is the top-ranked emerging economy while India is ranked 62nd, Sri Lanka 82nd, Bangladesh 97th, and Pakistan 105th.
Sri Lanka scored 30.36 points out of 100.

"The ability to innovate is the great equalizer in the global economy," said Karim Sabbagh, Senior Partner and the global leader of the Communications, Media, and Technology practice at Booz & Company.

"In the industrial era, nations relied on their natural resources to compete. Today, any country can advance with carefully focused investments in talent and R&D. The performance of some emerging economies in this year's GII shows what nations can accomplish with a focus on building 21st century economies."

(LBO)