Ireland drops place to 16th on innovation index

Ireland has dropped one place to 16th in Bloomberg’s 2017 innovation index.

South Korea retained first place, topping the international charts in R&D intensity, value-added manufacturing and patent activity, and with top-five rankings in high-tech density, higher education and researcher concentration.

Ireland ranked in second place for value-added manufacturing and in sixth place for productivity. The country recorded average scores for patent activity, researcher concentration and R&D intensity. However, Ireland still outperformed other predominantly English-speaking economies like Canada, the UK, Australia and New Zealand.

Nordic economies performed well, with Sweden taking second place in the index thanks to an improvement in its manufacturing value-added metric.

UK living standards hit by inflation and slow wage growth

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Brexit poses a serious threat to economic prosperity

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Workers being exploited by ‘if and when’ contracts

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Rise in number of professionals looking for new opportunities

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Neighbour Finland jumped two spots to finish fifth due to due to an increase in the number of high-tech firms in the State. Norway held on to 14th place.

Biggest loser

The biggest loser in this year’s Bloomberg Innovation Index was

Russia

, plunging 14 spots to number 26, almost five times the size of the next largest drop in the rankings. Battered by sanctions and the after-effects of a couple of years of subdued energy prices, Russia’s solid scores last year in manufacturing and productivity were destroyed in this year’s tally.

Japan, where the yen is still struggling to recover from an almost two-year slide, dropped the most of any economy in the top 25, moving to number seven from 4th place as they lost their best-in-world distinction for patent activity.

The US fell one spot to ninth place, while Israel moved up one notch to number 10. China held its title as the strongest-ranked emerging market, at number 21, as it improved its tertiary education score while its high-tech concentration wavered.

Category scores

The ranking began with over 200 economies, from which those that did not report data for at least six of seven categories measured were eliminated, trimming the list to 78. Bloomberg released overall and category scores for the top 50 innovative economies.

The worst performers in this year's index were Kazakhstan, Argentina and Morocco. – Additional reporting: Bloomberg