Part of the discussions that H+ group should be having revolve around how we get from here to there (what is required to ascend the shock levels?). One of the drivers is that ubiquitous, ill-defined and poorly thought out champion of politicians, innovation. Flaccid in thought and without rigor, politicians have added this to the canon of virtues that they weave into aspiration and perspiration, in this global competition of nations.
No surprise that a management school will produce a ranking; after all we have them for almost all other aspects of economic comparison:
The INSEAD report focuses broadly on two aspects of innovation: inputs and outputs. Inputs include things like political stability, press freedom, university attendance, and information technology use. Innovation outputs include the number of patents granted, economic indicators, and number of scientific journal articles published.
Despite the inclusion of some measures more associated with technological prowess, does this actually tell us much about how innovative a country or region is? It seems to conjure up another ranking of economic competitiveness, slightly slanted towards measurable aspects associated with technological activities. Hardly groundbreaking, and a reminder of how orthodox most of these exercises turn out to be.
