Before a couple of days in the newspaper, I had read “India moves 5 ranks up to become 52nd in GII”. So, as a Management student, this news generated curiosity to know what GII is and why does it matter. I also read that India is planning to bag 25th rank in the next four years. Yes, that’s how the title came out to be “The Number 25”. PC (Live mint, 2019)
Firstly, I got my primary information about GII – what is GII? How it works? To start with, The GII is a source of insight into the multidimensional aspects of growth driven by innovation. Providing 80 detailed metrics for 129 economies(countries), the GII has become one of the leading references for measuring an economy’s innovative performance. The GII has unfolded into a valuable benchmarking tool that can facilitate public-private dialogue and where policy-makers, business leaders, and other stakeholders can evaluate their innovation progress on an annual basis.
Each year the GII presents a thematic component that tracks global innovation. Theme for this year is “Creating Healthy lives: The future of medical innovation, it analyzes the medical innovation environment of the previous decade, looking at how technological and non-technological medical innovation will transform the delivery of healthcare worldwide. It also explores the role and dynamics of medical innovation as it creates the future of healthcare, and the potential influence this may have on economic growth.” (WIPO, 2018)
Getting it?? Sort of? From the information above we can say that they measure country on some metrics and that metrics are nothing but some characteristics of that particular country, let us take an example, Institution which is one of the metrics and that metric has subcomponents, like institution has subcomponents- political environment, regulatory environment and business environment. Subcomponents of metric change with country and theme and they rank them accordingly. Ranking is done on the country’s specific work; it is not necessary that the specification which has been taken for India will have to be the same as taken for china for ranking.
Let’s see what Main ingredients needed to become Global driver for Innovation. Which as per the GII institution defined as main pillars of the Ranking:
- Institution (+14)
- Human Capital and Research (+10)
- Infrastructure (+8)
- Market Sophistication (0)
- Knowledge and Technology (+25)
- Business Sophistication (-22)
- Creative output indicator (+16)
After the release of GII, minister of commerce and industry, Piyush Goyal is saying that “India’s Research and Development institution, Universities and Private sectors are going to convert into an Innovation hub, the culture of innovation will come in center stage”. We can also see from our budget that National Research Foundation is to be established to fund researcher.400 crore provided for ‘World Class Institutions’ for FY 2019-20 and that’s why the Indian government thinks that India will reach 25th position after 4years. But, like everything comes with some shortcomings, this also will have its shortcomings. It is probable that with the increasing focus on innovation and entrepreneurs getting a boost with many exposures opening up, there might be a downfall in quality of innovation and this downfall in quality can negatively affect the ranking. Another thing is, India is not giving so much importance to IPR (Intellectual Property Rights), innovators from the village are not aware of patent registration. A similar case happened in Chhattisgarh state’s small village, Konanand, where three engineering students were competing with Google’s project loon. Isn’t surprising?? Fortunately, they got help from startup India, which is also now started running with its full pace. To end, India is also lacking in pupil to teacher ratio, Education and Business Environment. So, it’s time, India should start looking on these parameters too.
Commerce and industry minister also said that, “at present India is facing problems like high pollution level, water crises, issue of climate change, problems of food wastage, depleting natural resources. These problems, we can solve through providing R&D and through innovative ideas.” (Global Innovation Index, GII- 2018 launched in India, 2018) It is possible only if they(govt.) accept these challenges in mission mode by engaging academia, private sector and government sector to increase quality of citizens’ lives even in the remotest part of the country. These things will help India to increase his rank in innovation index. Why R&D is important we can visualize from Chine, where they investing heavily on science and technology. Investment has been increased from 1.34% of GDP to 2.5% of GDP. In the Year 2018China’s intensity for the R&D was 2.18% of GDP. This period gives them economic growth of 6-fold. Rank of China also elevated from 29th to 14th in 5years.
To conclude, it can be said that government is helpful to improve our GII, but some merits and demerits also are associated. Government should work on its weakness and looking at Chhattisgarh’s case it can be said that they’ve started working on it. Just like “Startup India hub” where they help entrepreneur to transform their idea into reality. Let’s wait and see how the government stands at its resolution……. The number 25 gets justice or not.
Fun facts:
- Who is the founder of GII? [little whisper, “SHE is Indian”]
- Which country stand on 1st rank? Yes, Switzerland …. What is capital of it? From how many years they are at that position? Why are they able to maintain their first rank?
- Global Innovation Index, GII- 2018 launched in India. (2018, august 09). Retrieved from PIB: https://pib.gov.in/newsite/PrintRelease.aspx?relid=181750
- Live mint. (2019, july 24). Retrieved from Live mint: https://www.livemint.com/news/india/india-at-52nd-spot-in-global-innovation-index-up-by-5-notches-1563978783400.html
- WIPO. (2018, August 8). Retrieved from World Intellectual Property Organization: https://www.wipo.int/econ_stat/en/economics/news/2018/news_0006.html
Author Details
Bhavin Soni | PGDM (IM) | 2019-21
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