GII rankings: India top IT exporter but lags in information access

India slightly improved its rank in an index of the world’s most innovative economies, maintaining its position as the top exporter of IT services but still lagging in parameters of ease of starting a business, political stability and safety, and female employees with advanced degrees in the workforce. 

The Global Innovation Index (GII) rankings, published annually by Cornell University, INSEAD and the UN World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and GII Knowledge Partners, ranked India at the 57th spot this year, a slight improvement from the 60th position in 2017. 

India maintained its top place in the Central and Southern Asia region. However, it is noteworthy that while India is the top exporter of IT services, the use and access of information and communication technologies within the country is poor. India ranked 105th on IT access and 110th on IT use.

Among lower middle-income economies, India moved up to the fifth position in the GII rankings. It has also outperformed on innovation relative to its GDP per capita for eight years in a row. 

Now in its 11th edition, the GII ranks 126 economies based on 80 indicators, ranging from intellectual property filing rates to mobile-application creation, education spending and scientific and technical publications.

The other areas of strength for India include the number of its science and engineering graduates, an area in which it ranked sixth overall. It ranked fourth on ease of protecting minority investors, 16th on trade, competition and market scale and within this section, third on domestic market scale measured in purchasing power parity, 18th on the global R&D companies indicator, 20th on gross capital formation and 35th overall in investment. Another indicator where India was among the top five is the growth rate of GDP in purchasing power parity dollars per worker, coming in at fourth. In exports of creative goods, it ranked 17th.

However in some categories India ranked comparatively low. These include its 110th rank in political stability and safety, regulatory quality (91), applied tariff rate (96) and intensity of local competition (93). On the ecological sustainability indicator, India ranked 119. Out of 126 nations, it ranked 123rd on environmental performance.