The Netherlands climbs to 5th in the 2022 Global Innovation Index

An innovation hub in Europe

Each year, the World Intellectual Property Organisation releases the Global Innovation Index (GII) to capture the ecosystem performance of the world’s most innovative economies and track growing trends. This ranking looks at the innovation inputs, namely investments made in transformative growth, and measures them against creative, knowledge and technology outputs. This edition focuses on the future of innovation-driven growth, determining whether the current period of post-COVID stagnation is here to stay or we are entering into a new era fueled by the Digital Age and Deep Science.

According to the GII, Europe is home to the largest number of innovation leaders with 15 of the top 25 countries coming from the region. Based on GDP per capita, the Netherlands exceeds performance expectations, ranking 4th regionally and 5th globally. This is an improvement on the 6th place finish last year, and largely thanks to the Netherlands’ particularly strong institutions, government support of innovation initiatives, and Dutch contributions to knowledge and technology. 

Driven by sustainable growth

Innovation has always been an integral part of Dutch culture, and is very apparent in the Amsterdam Area. A hotbed of startup incubators, accelerators, and research institutions, the Dutch capital is a popular location to test and practice innovative new ideas.

Research facilities like Lab42 in Amsterdam Science Park help connect young talent to industry experts in the fast-growing fields of information science and AI. At the same time, there is a huge effort by the city government and academic institutions to invest in building new innovation hubs over the next 10 years. These hubs will be aimed at cultivating science-led entrepreneurship in knowledge-intensive industries and ensure that Dutch innovations continue to exceed expectations. 

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