Reports #1

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“Global Innovation Index 2020”

The Global Innovation Index, prepared by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), which comparatively examines global innovation trends in line with the data of 131 countries, was published on September 2. The title of the report, which came out in the shadow of the Covid-19 crisis, is “Who will finance innovation?” This is a topic that directly concerns our field of work as Refo. We will share the important findings of this report with you throughout the month and we will try to learn lessons from the perspective of innovation ecosystems.

The economic contractions expected to be effective over the coming years are expected to lead to resource constraints and a more cautious approach to investments. This brings the issue of financing innovation, which is seen as an important means of getting out of economic crises, to a more critical point. It is very important for the global economy to overcome both the current health crisis and global problems with innovative solutions in terms of employment, creating new markets and reducing costs with lower carbon footprint. Preservation of the future competitive power for large companies depends on the R&D investments they will make during this period. In the report, it is said that there is still hope for continuous R&D spending, which has grown much more than global growth in 2018 (5.2%). Information technologies, biotechnology and pharmaceutical industries are at the forefront of this crisis. In addition to these, some traditional sectors such as tourism, education and retail are being forced to be innovative by the crisis. It may also spark innovation in how work is organized at the firm- and at the individual level, and how production is reorganized locally and globally. Unleashing the potential in these areas and transforming them as a contribution to the economy depends on the continuity of public support and the collaborative models to be established.