Switzerland, the United Kingdom, Sweden, the Netherlands and the United States of America are the world's five most innovative nations, according to the Global Innovation Index 2015, while China, Malaysia, Viet Nam, India, Jordan, Kenya, and Uganda are among a group of countries outperforming their economic peers.

The GII 2015 looks at "Effective Innovation Policies for Development" and shows new ways that emerging-economy policymakers can boost innovation and spur growth by building on local strengths and ensuring the development of a sound national innovation environment. 

In terms of innovation quality - as measured by university performance, the reach of scholarly articles and the international dimension of patent applications - a few economies stand out. The US and the UK stay ahead of the pack, largely as a result of their world-class universities, closely followed by Japan, Germany and Switzerland. Top-scoring middle-income economies on innovation quality are China, Brazil and India, with China increasingly outpacing the others.

"For the last one year or so India is witnessing a renewed enthusiasm towards developing effective policies to boost its innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem, which has been weakly captured in this year's ranking" said CII's President Designate, Dr. Naushad Forbes.

He added "The GII model needs to evolve to capture the intricacy of innovation in developing nations. A heavy dependence on traditional input oriented indicators favors data points emanating from the developed nations and needs to be recalibrated".

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