How did Egypt do on the 2020 Global Innovation Index? Better performance but not a better ranking

Egypt is ranked 96th among the 131 economies featured in the 2020’s Global Innovation Index released in September 2020 and co-published by the World Intellectual Property Organization, Cornell University, and INSEAD. It analyzes key global innovation trends and presents a ranking of the innovation performance of more than 130 economies around the world.  This year's theme of GII is: “Who Will Finance Innovation?” is timely given the human and global economic damage wreaked by the COVID-19 global pandemic.

The Global Innovation Index (GII) ranks world economies according to their innovation capabilities. Consisting of roughly 80 indicators, grouped into innovation inputs and outputs, the GII aims to capture the multi-dimensional facets of innovation.

Egypt performs better in innovation outputs than innovation inputs in 2020.This year Egypt ranks 104th in innovation inputs, higher than last year and higher compared to 2018. As for innovation outputs, Egypt ranks 82nd. This position is lower than last year and lower compared to 2018.

One bright spot is in the ranking of best performers by income group: Within Egypt’s bracket of 29 lower middle-income group economies, Egypt ranks 14th. Regionally, Cyprus, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE all received high rankings.

Egypt has high scores in three out of the seven GII pillars: Human capital & research, Infrastructure and Knowledge & technology outputs, which are above average for the lower middle-income group.

Conversely, Egypt scores below average for its income group in four pillars: Institutions, Market sophistication, Business sophistication and Creative outputs.

Egypt performs below average in all seven of the GII pillars comparing to other economies in Northern Africa and Western Asia.

STRENGTHS

GII strengths for Egypt are found in six of the seven GII pillars; in Human capital& research, Egypt ranked 90^th: the indicator QS University ranking (48) reveals a strength. In the Infrastructure, Egypt ranked 99^th as Egypt demonstrates strength in the indicator GDP/unit of energy use (ranking: 45^th).

In Market sophistication, Egypt ranked 106^th due to the strength Egypt shoed in the indicator Domestic market scale (19^th ranking). For Business sophistication, Egypt ranked 103^th after displaying strengths in the indicators Knowledge-intensive employment (45), State of cluster development (22) and High-tech imports (45).

In the Knowledge & technology outputs, Egypt ranks 65^th as it reveals strengths in the sub-pillar Knowledge impact (36^th ranking), and in the indicators Citable documents H-index (47^th ranking), Growth rate of PPP (20^th ranking) and Computer software spending (21^th ranking). For Creative outputs, Egypt ranked 101^th as the indicator Creative goods exports (45^th ranking) demonstrates a strength.

WEAKNESSES

GII weaknesses for Egypt are found in six of the seven GII pillars; in the Institutions Egypt ranked 115^th exhibiting weaknesses in the sub-pillar Regulatory environment (124^th ranking) and in the indicators Regulatory quality (121^th ranking) and Cost of redundancy dismissal (124^th ranking).

Egypt ranked 90^th in Human capital & research because of the weaknesses in the indicators Graduates in science & engineering (102^th ranking) and Global R&D companies (42^th ranking). In Business sophistication, Egypt ranked 103^th as the indicator Firms offering formal training reveals a weakness (93^th ranking).

In addition, Egypt ranked 99^th in the infrastructure after displaying weaknesses in the sub-pillar General infrastructure (116^th ranking) and in the indicator Gross capital formation (114^th ranking). In the Market sophistication, Egypt ranked 106^th after showing weaknesses in the sub-pillar Investment (119^th ranking) and in the indicator Venture capital deals (70^th ranking).

For the Creative outputs, Egypt ranked 101^th  after demonstrating weaknesses in the indicators National feature films (96^th ranking), Entertainment & Media market (61^th ranking) and Country-code TLDs (123^th ranking).