INSEAD, in collaboration with Cornell University and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), published the 14^th edition of the “Global Innovation Index 2021 – Tracking Innovation through the COVID-19 Crisis” report. The report highlighted that investment in innovation has remained resilient throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, even attaining new peaks at some instances, yet results varied markedly across regions. In figures, the report highlighted that publication of scientific articles increased by 7.6% during the year 2020 and that government allocations for Research and Development (R&D) in the largest economies continued to improve in 2020. Always in the same context, the report unveiled that international patent filings via the WIPO have registered an all-time high during the year 2020 while the value of venture capital deals (VC) improved by 5.8% during the year 2020, bettering the average growth registered during the last 10 years.  The report also pointed out that firms that operate in the fields of software & information & communication technology and pharmaceuticals and biotechnology have dramatically increased their investments in innovation while firms that were hit by the pandemic (transport and travel fields) have trimmed such investments. The INSEAD report revealed that the North America and Europe regions dominate by far other regions in terms of index performance and that the South East Asia, East Asia, and Oceania region was the sole region that managed to somewhat close the gap recently.

The 2021 Global Innovation Index (GII) comprises data taken from 132 economies and is composed of two sub-indices: the Innovation Input Sub-Index and the Innovation Output Sub-Index. In details, the overall score is the average score of the innovation input & output sub-indices, which ranges between 0 and 100. Moreover, the Innovation Input Sub-Index is composed of five pillars (Institutions, Human Capital and Research, Infrastructure, Market Sophistication, and Business Sophistication), while the Innovation Output Sub-Index comprises two pillars (Knowledge and Technology Outputs and Creative Outputs). On a global level, Switzerland came in the 1^st position in the GII 2021 with a score of 65.50, followed by Sweden (score: 63.10), the United States of America (score: 61.30), the United Kingdom (score: 59.80), and Korea (score: 59.30), among others. On a regional basis, the UAE came first in the GII 2021 rankings of Arab countries with a score of 43.00 (global rank: 33), followed by Saudi Arabia (score: 31.80; global rank: 66), Qatar (score: 31.50; global rank: 68), and Tunisia (score: 30.70; global rank: 71), only to name a few.

As far as Lebanon is concerned, the latter attained a score of 25.10 in the GII 2021, placing it in the 10^th position among its Arab peers and 92^nd position globally, in comparison with the 87^th position held a year earlier. Furthermore, Lebanon also came in the 30^th position among 34 upper middle income countries included in the report. In detail, Lebanon ranked 94^th globally in the Input Sub-Index and 97^th in the Output Sub-Index. On the Input Sub-Index front, Lebanon ranked 112^th in the world in the “Institutions” pillar (score: 50.10), 87^th in the “Human Capital & Research” pillar (score: 24.90), 100^th in the “Infrastructure” pillar (score: 30.40), 90^th in the “Market Sophistication” pillar (score: 42.90), and 64^th in the “Business Sophistication” pillar (score: 25.40). With respect to the Output Sub-Index, Lebanon positioned 91^st in the “Knowledge & Technology Outputs” pillar (score: 14.10) and 92^nd in the “Creative Outputs” pillar (score: 17.20).