Mauritius retains the top ranking in sub-Saharan Africa and climbs seven places to 45th on the Global Innovation Index (GII). The report was released on 29 September 2022 by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), a United Nations agency in collaboration with Cornell University in the United States and INSEAD, the European Institute of Business Administration.
Each year, the GII assesses the growth of no less than 132 countries on their performance in research, innovation, knowledge, technology, human resources, and market development in different sectors.
In its report, the GII underlines that Mauritius has done better in terms of innovation during the past year and the indicators concerned are clearly up, compared to 2021 and 2020. As a result, the country is now ranked 6th out of 36 countries classified as “upper-middle-income economies”.
According to the Minister of Information Technology, Communication and Innovation, Mr Darsanand Balgobin, the Government has continuously invested in research and innovation and has funded many projects to promote innovation in Mauritius through the Mauritius Research and Innovation Council. The indicators in this report, he said, reveal that Mauritius has done better in recent years in terms of research and development and innovation. “The objective now is to maintain this course and aim for the top 20 in the world ranking,” he added.
About the GII
Created in 2007 by Cornell University, INSEAD and the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), the GII can be translated as the Global Innovation Index. The GII goes beyond the traditional indicators used to measure research and development and innovation in a country and thus focuses more on the interaction between the various agents of the innovation system (business, public sector, higher education and society).
The GII index, which can be scored between 0 (for the worst performance) and 100 (for the best performance), is calculated on the basis of two sub-indicators: the inputs (institutions, human resources and research, infrastructure, market sophistication and business environment sophistication) and outputs (knowledge and technology, creativity) of the innovation system. The study, which covers some 132 countries, is based on a total of 82 core indicators and is published annually.
