IRELAND has been named in the top 10 of the world's most innovative economies, leapfrogging the Netherlands to 7th place globally.
2016’s Global Innovation Index report sees the United Kingdom overtaken by Sweden and dropping one place to 3rd, while Switzerland holds on to the top spot as the world’s most innovative economy.
Ireland’s move up the table was fuelled by ranking top in Royalty and Licence fee payments into the economy, which reflects the interest multinational giants such as Facebook and Apple have shown in holding intellectual property assets in Ireland.
Ireland ranks highest globally for the number of edits made to Wikipedia, the largest and most popular Internet encyclopaedia on Earth.
Other sectors topped by the Irish were how easy it is to pay tax, foreign direct investment as a share of the economy and computer services exports.
Ireland going strong: The Top 20Ireland could have placed even higher if it wasn’t for its relatively poor capital investment and gross capital formation. Surprisingly, Ireland also ranked low on cultural and creative exports.
But the Irish still ranked above world-leading economies such as Germany, Australia, Israel, Denmark and the Netherlands.
Other big rises included China who entered the top 25 for the first time to become the first “middle income” economy to do so well.
War-torn Yemen perhaps unsurprisingly ranks the lowest globally, while Georgia’s placed 64th.
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