Innovation investment growth at 15-year-low: UN

Growth in global innovation funding has fallen to its lowest rate since 2010, UN projections showed Tuesday, as high inflation eats into research and development spending and as venture capital deals slump.

In its annual ranking of the world’s most innovative economies, the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) placed Switzerland at the top of the list for the 15th consecutive year.

Sweden and the United States retained their second and third place positions for the third year running, while China edged its way one spot higher and into the top 10.

But while the ranking picture largely resembled that of recent years, the United Nations patent agency cautioned that global innovation funding growth had notably slowed.

“The fuel powering the engine of innovation, which is capital, which is financing, is not as abundant as before,” WIPO chief Daren Tang told reporters.

“After a decade of rapid expansion in R&D spending and venture capital investment, we are witnessing a shift,” he said in the foreword of the report.

The WIPO report said R&D spending growth slowed to 2.9 percent last year, down from 4.4 percent a year earlier, and it projected that growth would slow further this year, to 2.3 percent.

Business R&D expenditures, which represent over 70 percent of total global R&D, is projected to grow just 1.4 percent in 2024 and 2025, when excluding the China and the United States from projections -- far below the 4.6-percent average of the past decade, WIPO said.