Vietnam rises two places in global innovation index in 2023

Vietnamese scientists making the NanoDragon satellite (Photo VNSC)

Vietnam has leapt two places in the Global Innovation Index (GII) in 2023, ranking 46th out of 132 countries and territories, according to a GII report recently released by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO).

According to the report, Vietnam has continued to show progress in converting innovation input into output performance.

The country has jumped from 59th position last year to 57th position this year in terms of input level, while its output level rose one place to 40th position.

The GII input pillars include institutions, human capital and research, infrastructure, market sophistication, and business sophistication.

Meanwhile, the output performances are knowledge and technology outputs and creative output.

Particularly, Vietnam has maintained its second position among lower middle-income countries in the overall GII after India (40th). Among ASEAN countries, Vietnam is behind Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand.

According to WIPO, Vietnam is among the most impressive innovation climbers of the last decade.

Vietnam, along with India and the Republic of Moldova, continues to be record holders by being innovation overperformers for a 13th consecutive year.

This year, Vietnam ranks 33rd in the unicorn valuation, and 66th in research and development (R&D) expenditure.

However, some indicators remain at low levels. Although the ecological sustainability index group improved by three places compared to last year, the ranking is still very low, at 110th place.

Among them, the most notable is the environmental performance index ranked 130th, continuing to decrease by two places year-on-year. This is an index that has consistently had a low ranking from 2017 to present.

Institutional issues still require significant improvement efforts to create favourable conditions for socio-economic development based on science, technology, and innovation.

The rule of law index ranked 72nd, down two places.

The regulatory quality index, after improving 10 places from 93rd to 83rd last year, dropped to 94th place this year.

The GII is a set of tools to evaluate the global innovation capacity of prestigious countries in the world, reflecting the socio-economic development model based on science, technology, and innovation of nations.

Thereby, countries can see the overall picture as well as their strengths and weaknesses.

Recently, the Government has used this set of indicators as one of the important management tools and has assigned ministries, agencies, and localities to be jointly responsible for improving the index.

In particular, the Ministry of Science and Technology is tasked with being the focal point for monitoring and general coordination.

The country's GII has continuously improved from 2017 onwards, increasing from position 59 (in 2016) to 42 (in 2019 and 2020), 44 in 2021, 48 last year, and 46 this year.

VNS