Every year, the Global Innovation Index rates the most innovative economies in the world, whilst highlighting their strong and weak points when it comes to progress and innovation. Each country is evaluated based on 80 different categories, which are grouped into innovation inputs and innovation outputs.
The top five most innovative countries in the world according to this methodology are Switzerland, Sweden, the US, the UK, and Singapore. All Baltics improved their ranking this year: the highest-ranked country is Estonia, in 16th place, while Lithuania came in 34th.
In the latest Global Innovation Index 2023, Latvia comes in at 37th place, which is four places higher than last year. The number of patents submitted has improved by 3.28% since the last rating. Figures have also improved in high technology exports, where the value increased by 5.94.
Latvia’s best results were in creative outputs (31st place), infrastructure (33rd place), and business sophistication (37th place). Latvia also has comparatively high results in institutions (39th place), human capital and research (43rd place), and knowledge and technology outputs (49th place).
As reported by Invest in Latvia, Riga’s strengths are innovation in the film industry, higher education enrollment, and the proportion of culture and creative services exports compared with total trade. Meanwhile, Latvia has weaker results in categories such as domestic market scale, business policy, and software spending. Latvia ranks 38th in innovation input, climbing one place since last year, and ranks 39th in innovation output, which is three places higher than in 2022.
One of the indicators which is analyzed in this report is predicted versus achieved innovation results. In this aspect, it was concluded that Latvia’s results in innovation compared with gross domestic product figures match development predictions, but the country is still not among those countries that are viewed as innovation leaders or whose results are higher than predicted.
Researchers admit that the past year has been a varied one in the innovation environment, impacted by many challenges and a global reduction in financing for innovation. It is also unclear how this year will end and what is to come in 2024. Although technological progress continues to move forward in large and powerful steps, the socioeconomic returns are not as hoped for.
To encourage the development of metaverse technology, the production of microchips, and quantum research and to improve the digital skills of the public in this region, Riga Technical University (RTU) has signed a letter of support for the creation of a regional center of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology (EIT) knowledge and innovation community — EIT Digital — in Latvia.
Its implementation is believed to give Latvia’s innovation ecosystem the opportunity to integrate into the European digital innovation community, while simultaneously forging new collaboration opportunities with more than 300 partners from the EIT Digital ecosystem, including startups, manufacturers, research institutions, investors, and public sector organizations.
The creation of this office would also help with attracting European co-financing for the development and research of metaverse technology, microchips, and quantum research technology. This would lead to beneficial conditions for creating innovative products and services, bringing together experts from their respective fields, and promoting the development of digital skills.