Asia extends lead in ‘100 Global Innovators’ index
Countries from this region dominate the list as US stays in second place | UK has one entry in the list | Six companies have re-entered the top 100.
Asian companies have continued to extend their leadership in the global innovation system, according to Clarivate’s 2023 “Top 100 Global Innovators” list.
This year, 58 Asian organisations were listed in the report, with Japan topping the list with 38 companies named (four more than in 2022).
Just last year, Asian companies overtook US companies to take the top spot. The growth in Asia was partly buoyed due to a “shift in the new methodology” which brought about “a swing of recognition to companies in Japan,” Clarivate said at the time.
In 2023, 11 Taiwanese organisations were named, alongside five from South Korea and four from mainland China. Outside of Asia, the US is home to 19, while France and Germany have seven each. The UK had only one entry: Rolls Royce, after it had seccured two entries last year (Rolls Royce and CNH Industrial).
Five companies— AAC Technologies from mainland China, Nanya Technology and Winbond Electronics from Taiwan, Nidec from Japan and Otis Worldwide from the US—joined the list for the first time this year.
Meanwhile, six companies, including Google’s parent Alphabet and European semiconductor firm NXP Semiconductor, re-entered the top 100.
Electronics and computing equipment was the largest industry sector of the top 100 global innovators, with 26 companies in the sector. Both the chemicals and materials sector and the semiconductor identified 11 organisations each, while the automotive sector identified 10 companies.
Additionally, 19 companies have retained a top 100 standing for every year of the listings. The companies named include 3M, Boeing, Dow, Ericsson, Fujitsu and GE.
For the first time, Clarivate has also identified the 50 research organisations most often cited by the top 100 global innovators.
“Most prolific is the work of the institutions that make up the Chinese Academy of Sciences, while looking at the number of institutions across the Top 50, the pre-eminence of US academic institutions is clear with half of the Top 50 being US universities,” said the report.
The Chinese Academy of Sciences in mainland China was followed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Stanford University in the US.
Clarivate added that the “research landscape enabling downstream inventions is relatively concentrated geographically, with just four countries or regions with more than two organisations in the list: the US, mainland China, the UK and South Korea.”
Gordon Samson, chief product officer at Clarivate, said, “At Clarivate, we aim to bring clarity to the complex. Our focus is to pore over what humanity knows today and to put forward the insight that explores all possible horizons; that enables transition and transformation.
“We acknowledge the Top 100 Global Innovators 2023: companies and organisations that know that innovative ideas and solutions to current challenges not only bring rewards to their businesses but foster genuine improvements in society.”
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