Context: Recently, Karnataka has bagged the top rank in NITI Aayog’s India Innovation Index, 2022, which determines innovation capacities and ecosystems at the sub-national level.

About India Innovation Index

• NITI (National Institution for Transforming India) Aayog with the Institute for Competitiveness releases India Innovation Index.

• The index has been developed on the lines of the Global Innovation Index (GII), to ameliorate the innovation ecosystem of Indian states and Union Territories (UTs) and to design policies to drive innovation across regions.

• The index goes beyond traditional approaches by considering the best parameters in measuring innovation such as patents per million of population, publication in scientific journals, percentage of GDP spending on research.

• It also adds parameters that are specific to the Indian economy (eg. Demographic dividend), to give it a more holistic coverage.

Indicators Used

The indicators that the survey uses includes the level and quality of education and parameters such as:

• Number of PhD students and knowledge-intensive employment.

• Enrolment in engineering and technology and number of highly skilled professionals.

• Investment in R&D and number of patents and trademark applications filed.

• Internet subscribers.

• FDI inflows, business environment and safety and legal environment.

Key highlights

• Manipur secured the lead in the Northeast and Hill States category

• Chandigarh was the top performer in the Union Territories and City States category.

• Karnataka was followed by Telangana, Haryana, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu.

• Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Bihar and Gujarat were at the bottom of the index.

Report recommended measures
Pointing out that India’s average innovation score is insufficient, given the country’s ambitious targets to be named among the top 25 nations in the Global Innovation Index, the report by the government think tank has recommended measures, such as

• Increasing Gross Domestic Expenditure on R&D (GDERD),

• Promoting private sector participation in R&D and

• Closing the gap between industry demand and what the country produces through its education systems.

Significance

• The study examines the innovation ecosystem of Indian states and union territories.

• The aim is to create a holistic tool that can be used by policymakers across the country to identify the challenges to be addressed and strengths to build on when designing policies.