Turkey ranked 36th most innovative country in report

ISTANBUL

Turkey is the 36th most innovative country in the world, according to the recently released Bloomberg Innovation Index.

With a score of 60.92, Turkey ranked 36 out of 84 countries in the 2016 index, retaining its position from 2015 after it had moved up a spot in 2014.  

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 84, said Bloomberg in reporting the results of this year’s index. 

Bloomberg bases its methodology on seven criteria: research and development (R&D), manufacturing value-added, productivity, high-tech density, tertiary efficiency, researcher concentration and patent activity.

Turkey took the highest grade in manufacturing with the high value-added criterion, but ranked worst in researcher concentration at 44. 

Six of the top 10 economies hail from Europe, and three from Asia.

In the world of ideas, South Korea is king, according to the index. 

Germany, Sweden, Japan and Switzerland rounded out the top five in the 2016 Bloomberg Innovation Index, which scored economies using factors including research and development spending and concentration of high-tech public companies.

Singapore and Finland followed these countries, and the world’s largest economy, the United States, was eighth in the rankings. Denmark and France rounded out the top 10. Israel followed these countries at number 11.

The placement for the world’s second-largest economy, China, at No. 21 in the innovation index is reasonable given its status as a developing country in which technologies are largely copied rather than created, according to Bloomberg.