Sacha Wunch Vincent: Innovation in China Beneficial to the World

"China is strengthening in innovation. We cannot get an impressive scorecard in global innovation without China，" said Sacha Wunsch Vincent, the section chief of Economics and Statistics Section under the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and also one of the co-editors of the 2017 Global Innovation Index Report, while offering the Geneva-based organization's input on the report via video conferencing at around able forum, co-sponsored by The WIPO Office in China and Center for Innovation Index Research of Peking University (PKU).

The Global Innovation Index 2017(GII), released in Geneva on June 15 by WIPO, reveals China's elevation to an all-time-high 22nd, following an already record-setting top 25 appearances the only middle-income economy in 2016. This year's report runs the theme Innovation Feeding the World with special focus on agriculture and food value chains in addition to announcing the latest innovation index ranking.

The forum, hosted by PKU Professor Chen Dongmin drew scholars and experts from 29 institutions including Center for Sustainable Agricultural Mechanization (CSAM) of the United Nations, Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST), Ministry of Agriculture (MOA), State Intellectual Property Office (SIPO) and National Copyright Administration (NCA). Paved by Sacha's interpretation of the report, participants were led to profound discussions on sustainable agriculture and food systems in China and on strengthening cooperations in global innovation index between WIPO and the Chinese government.

Sacha applauded innovative activities in China. From his global perspective, an increasing number of countries are leaning towards innovation. GII is set up as a tool to help these countries ascertain innovation more thoroughly and to some extent, measure their pros and cons in innovation."All countries are growing better and better. The reports released consecutively in past 10 years can show us the change of global innovation trend. Ten years ago, we were still proving the importance of evaluating innovations at conferences in different countries, but now we are discussing how to promote innovations and invest more on innovations." according to Sacha, although investment in innovation fell and R&D production slowed down in some countries due to the economic crisis in 2008, China has made tremendous progresses in innovation as a developing country, overtaking Japan and Republic of Korea, and facilitating formation of an Asian innovation network with Singapore and Vietnam, and inspiring countries in Africa and South America to explore their own innovative potentials.

"Lots of innovation policy discontinuities are found in some countries due to change of leaders. We suggest them to learn from China to pursue the dream of innovations consistently," said Sacha. When invited to comment on China's ascension in the ranking, he responded, "It is good news for the world that China is growing stronger in innovations. The progress China has made in promoting environment protection and sustainable development is beneficial to African countries."

However, innovations in China are still disadvantageous in some aspects, according to the WIPO expert. The rise of China in GII ranking is attributed to high rankings in indexes such as Innovation Input and Output Performance, and top ranking performances in Knowledge Workers, Firms Offering Formal Training, Patents by Origin and Utility Models by Origin. But China loiters beyond the 100th in Regulatory Environment, Tertiary Education and Online Creativity." If China targets top 15 or even top 10, it needs good permeances in each index. So China needs to pay more attention to weaknesses." added Sacha.

"GII is an open report, and WIPO looks forward to open cooperations with every country. WIPO keeps hearing about your opinions and suggestions on the report," said Chen Hongbing, Director of WIPO Office in China. "As an important innovative country, China should expand participation in GII research, compilation and promotion, seek for a comprehensive content and increase the policy reference value."

Source: China IP News