Bangladesh’s innovation performance remains unchanged

Bangladesh has not made any major improvements in terms of innovation for the last four years. 

The country, once again, ranked 116th out of 132 countries in the Global Innovation Index (GII), published by World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) on Monday. 

The index estimates the most recent global innovation trends of countries, and ranks their annual ecosystem performance using seven broad indicators.

Like last year, Bangladesh has performed better in innovation outputs than in innovation inputs by holding 113th and 121th positions respectively.

While the indicators seem to have ranked slightly better in terms of institutional framework, human capital and research, domestic credit to private sector, there has been no major improvements in the country's overall infrastructural development or business sophistication.

Business sophistication refers to how a country has been able to generate knowledge-intensive employment, create innovative linkages and maintain intellectual properties. Bangladesh has de-ranked in all of these categories.

The report also suggests that the country's university-industry R&D collaboration has deteriorated over the years.

Among the South Asian countries, India (46th) has made it to the top 50 for the second time, ranking 3rd among the lower middle-income group. Sri Lanka (95th) and Pakistan (99th) have both ranked up compared with last year, whereas Bangladesh is now the least innovative country after Myanmar (127th). Meanwhile, Nepal (111th) is the only country in the region to have lost its previous position.

Afghanistan, Bhutan and the Maldives were not ranked on the 2021 index.

Apart from this region, the top three countries – Switzerland, Sweden, USA – remain the same.