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Switzerland retains crown as 'world's most innovative nation'

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Switzerland retains crown as 'world's most innovative nation'
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Switzerland has been named the world's most innovative country by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) for the eighth year in a row.

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The country claimed the top spot in the Global Innovation Index 2018 published on Tuesday. 

Rounding out the top five were the Netherlands, Sweden, the UK and Singapore. 

Read also: Opinion - why Switzerland is a great place to do business

Compiled by WIPO, Cornell University and France's INSEAD business school, the innovation study is described as a "detailed quantitative tool that helps global decision makers better understand how to stimulate the innovative activity that drives economic and human development". 

It looks at over 80 indicators ranging from environmental performance (where Switzerland took top spot) to knowledge-intensive employment (third place) and even Wikipedia edits (27). 

Switzerland scored very highly for factors including its political environment (2) and regulatory environment (5). It also claimed top stop for research collaboration between industry and universities. 

The WIPO study results are further confirmation of the role of innovation in Switzerland.  

Switzerland's EPFL federal technology institute came fourth in the recent Reuters Top 100: Europe’s Most Innovative Universities ranking, while Zurich's ETH placed tenth and the University of Zurich was 13th. 

Switzerland also regularly comes top globally for the number of patents filed per capita. 

However, the WIPO study is not all good news for Switzerland. The country continues to have low scores for ease of starting a business (59), women with advanced degrees as a percentage of the total workforce (29th spot) and expenditure on education as a percentage of GDP (50th overall). 

Read also: The pros and cons of working in Switzerland

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