An examination of the 2015 Global Innovation Index and how the Caribbean countries included in that exercise performed.
Quite regularly, concern has been expressed in a variety of quarters about what is perceived as the lack of innovation across the Caribbean, and the need for it to be improved. Last year, collaboration between INSEAD, Cornell University and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), and their knowledge partners resulted in the release of the Global Innovation Index 2015: Effective Innovation Policies for Development.
The Global Innovation Index is published every other year and currently is in its eighth edition. It aims to determine the level of innovation worldwide by examining factors that contribute to innovation. Here we examine the performance of the five Caribbean/Caribbean Community (CARICOM) countries included in the exercise.
How innovation is measured
To measure innovation worldwide, 79 individual indicators are assessed across seven main pillars and 21 sub-pillars.
Through the data collected, it is possible to determine:
- the Innovation Input Sub-Index – the extent to which the national economy of a country enables innovative activities
- the Innovation Output Sub-Index – the extent to which outputs that are the results of innovative activities within the economy
- the Innovation Efficiency Ratio – the ratio of the Output Sub-Index score over the Input Sub-Index score
- the overall Global Innovation Index (GII) score – a simple average of the Input and Output Sub-Index scores
In the 2015 assessment of the GII, 141 countries were examined, but only five were from the Caribbean/Caribbean Community (CARICOM) region: Barbados; the Dominican Republic; Guyana; Jamaica; and Trinidad and Tobago.
How did Caribbean Nations Perform? Find out here
