The Top 11 Most Innovative Countries Ranked By INSEAD

The INSEAD business school released the fifth annual Global Innovation Index.

The report ranks 125 countries around the world, and this year, Europe dominated the top 11 economies on the list. The United States rose in the rankings, from 11th place in 2010 to 7th in 2011.

The index is calculated based on a variety of characteristics, including human capital and research, infrastructure, business sophistication, and scientific and creative products generated by each country.

INSEAD explained in a press release:

The Global Innovation Index is computed as an average of the scores across inputs pillars (describing the enabling environment for innovation) and output pillars (measuring actual achievements in innovation). Five pillars constitute the Innovation Input Sub-Index: 'Institutions,' 'Human capital and research,' 'Infrastructure', 'Market sophistication' and 'Business sophistication'. The Innovation Output Sub-Index is composed of two pillars: 'Scientific outputs' and 'Creative outputs’. The Innovation Efficiency Index, calculated as the ratio of the two Sub-Indices, examines how economies leverage their enabling environments to stimulate innovation results.

This year's No. 1 moved up three slots from last year's Global Innovation Index. Click through to find out who tops the list.

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11. Iceland

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Taking a dive from last year's ranking as No. 1, Iceland places eleventh on this year's list. The year before, it 2009, it placed at No. 20.

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Taking a dive from last year's ranking as No. 1, Iceland places eleventh on this year's list. The year before, it 2009, it placed at No. 20.

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Comments

[David Sharpe]

01:33 PM on 07/03/2011

Sorry - the Sweden photo, not the Finland photo.

[David Sharpe]

01:32 PM on 07/03/2011

The Finland photo has been doctored. Buildings show sun is to the right, low in the sky; the sky suggests a sunset directly in front.

[dtallwalk]

11:43 PM on 07/02/2011

WOW last place
Good job conservatives

[dalifemme77]

02:06 AM on 07/02/2011

Finland number 5?? Should be higher..

[J Smith 01]

11:18 PM on 07/01/2011

What? Financial products do not count? Wall Street will disaprove not being ranked #1

[Freddie27]

07:40 PM on 07/01/2011

But aren't they the socialist countries the GOP/Faux News (what's the difference?) warned us about?

[ljkcan]

07:53 PM on 07/01/2011

No we just have good social programs

[ericmunchjohnson]

10:56 PM on 07/01/2011

That's what socialism is! We, in the US, have just allowed socialism to become a dirty word. (oh, unless you count the highways and the police and fire department and the postal service and social security and medicare.....I guess we're a bunch of socialists, but don't like to admit it)

[bad spelling grammar]

04:12 PM on 07/01/2011

Come on USA lets aspire to be number 1

[Enroh Mot]

04:47 PM on 07/01/2011

The US dominates the global arms trade with 70% of the worlds total sales, the USA is number one.

[Slowfuriousand10hrs]

04:51 PM on 07/01/2011

War is more of Americas business than business is. WW3 Cash Cow coming up.

[bad spelling grammar]

04:57 PM on 07/01/2011

Ya but there is one problem with that mister anti war, it requires us to promotes war so that our arms trade can prosper because in order for them to sell their products they need a war to exists How about we try innovating in another industry that doesn’t require people to kill each other like consumer technology. Being a war vet you should understand this. I am shocked that you don’t.

[msjimmied]

03:58 PM on 07/01/2011

And you know why this is? It's because you're all lazy. shiftless, and parasites on the government teat. Now, if you were all home schooled in that fine shack by the glowing, bubbling river, maybe you too can mutate into a banker.

[Candid One]

04:13 PM on 07/01/2011

You're saying that's the reason why the US rose four places in the past year? Great! We're climbing. We'll soon be number 1! Woof, woof!

[Edward Standley]

08:08 PM on 07/01/2011

And you do realize there are no citizens working at those innovative corporations, right? Only corporations innovate.

[Gardner Underhill]

02:35 PM on 07/03/2011

Corporations are run by people. People who happen to citizens of whatever country the offices and production facilities happen to be in. Corporations are tools, like government, hammers, and handguns. Corporations in and of themselves do nothing.

[Winston Grant]

03:35 PM on 07/01/2011

We need to actually start DOING things instead of having IPOs for most innovative way to WASTE YOUR TIME.

[BuckyJamesDio]

03:32 PM on 07/01/2011

# 1 does not surprise me at all. I mean, look at the dammed Army knife!

[bad spelling grammar]

04:12 PM on 07/01/2011

lol so true

[gretchenart]

03:31 PM on 07/01/2011

ah the shame of being outranked by countries operating under Socialist type structures! Socialism just might not be the bogeyman Americans make it out to be!

[Candid One]

04:18 PM on 07/01/2011

Yep, Democracy is along the spectrum of socialism. It's a way of bringing individuals together except that the US hasn't worked that out yet, still pulling in 300 million directions. That's no way to make progress. We're into innovating negativity.

[LiveTheSheenDream]

03:31 PM on 07/01/2011

Yeah right - and if Switzerland ever revealed the identities of their banks' account-holders the world would learn just how much of Switzerland's wealth was skinned off the backs of the victims of the world's most bloodthirsty criminals. When I think of Swiss wealth I think Nazi loot, illicit drug trafficking, illegal arms smuggling, global slave trafficking, embezzlement, theft of Third World treasuries, etc.

[Enroh Mot]

03:54 PM on 07/01/2011

Wachovia Bank laundered $378.3 billion dollars between May1, 2004, and May31, 2007. Every major US bank has been laundering drug money for many years.

[LiveTheSheenDream]

04:18 PM on 07/01/2011

True - but the big boyz have to go to Swiss banks for genuine privacy. The Swiss are alone in the world when it comes to maintaining anonymity at all costs.

[timetocookdinner]

03:24 PM on 07/01/2011

Hmmm, how does Switzerland fund all this impressive innovation? Oh yeah, by serving as a safe haven for the money of every dictator, drug kingpin, and financial criminal on the planet, from H1tler to Madoff to to Mugabe to Gaddafi.

[oilfield]

03:52 PM on 07/01/2011

i thought they were competing with china in manufacturing.

[Aj Armstrong]

03:05 PM on 07/01/2011

I find it slightly amusing (and extremely sad) to go through the comments and see my fellow Americans doing their best to boost our country's image by "explaining" why this nation is still "number one". Stop reaching guys, there's no denying that right now we're in the crapper. The rest of the world knows this, regardless of what you might say to try and make them think otherwise. Instead of pulling sorry statistics out of our bottoms, we need to acknowledge our faults and proactively do what we need to do in order to change the status quo.

[Enroh Mot]

03:59 PM on 07/01/2011

The main function of the political establishment, both parties, is to maintain the status quo.

[Aj Armstrong]

04:34 PM on 07/01/2011

Precisely! Which makes all of the political rhetoric between the two "opposing" parties that much more of a joke. Isn't it astounding how gullible people care capable of being? Government exposes our deep psychological urge to argue and compete with one another; repeating the same mistakes until we are blue in the face, all the while hindering our progress as a nation. We answer to the government when it should be the other way around. Regardless, I don't think a revolution is ever completely out of the question.. just a lot more difficult to pull off in a nation full of people who cannot see the forest for the trees.

[Toddynho]

12:36 PM on 07/02/2011

Excellent! And fanned.

[happyone6470]

04:18 PM on 07/01/2011

And it is very sad and concerns me greatly that we are in the crapper . When not so many years ago we were # 1 in almost everything . Have we the poeple changed that much or has government caused this ? I think we all know the answer to that question .

[meglon978]

11:17 PM on 07/01/2011

It was when we started electing people to office who believed that government was always the problem, then did their very best to make sure that was the case.

[secondcoming]

02:55 PM on 07/01/2011

America his holding it'self back consider the film industry and the media, that includes technology better than 99.98 percent of people with innovations are barred from even entering these fields. when they the media talk about "letting a mind go to waste" it's a joke.