The Global Innovation Index 2020 (GII-2020), a joint publication of Cornell University (USA), INSEAD Business School (France) and the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), covers 131 countries this year (129 countries were included in last year's ranking) was published. The GII-2020 rating is based on 80 indicators covering the potential, productivity and framework conditions of innovation activity. The analyzed indicators cover a wide range of information, from legislation, science and education to market, business and infrastructure development issues. The main purpose of publishing the GII is to create opportunities to estimate the mechanisms of stimulating innovation.

Leader of GII-2020 is Switzerland followed by Sweden, USA, UK and Netherlands. Top ten most innovative countries also include Denmark, Finland, Singapore, Germany and the Republic of Korea. What is interesting is that China ranks 14th in the second ten.

The best performers among the post-Soviet countries are Estonia (25th place), Latvia (36th place) and Lithuania (40th place). Russia ranks 47th, while Azerbaijan ranks 82nd, improving its ranking compared to last year (84th).

The GII 2020 rating consists of 7 groups of indicators of innovation activity included in the two final sub-indexes “Innovation resources” and “Innovation results”. The sub-index "Innovation Resources" allows you to evaluate the elements of the national economy in which innovation processes take place, dividing them into five groups (1 – Institutions; 2 – Human capital&Research; 3 – Infrastructure; 4 – Market Sophistication and 5 – Business Sophistication). The sub-index “Innovation Results” reflects the actual results of innovation activities by dividing them into two groups:6 – Knowledge&Technology outputs; and 7 – Creative outputs.

According to the "Innovation Resources" sub-index, Azerbaijan ranks 76th in the CIS, ahead of Uzbekistan (81), Armenia (83), Kyrgyzstan (88) and Tajikistan (108).

The best result of this sub-index of our country was obtained in the block "Market Sophistication" - 36th place. Azerbaijan ranks 39th in this block in the "Credit" category, ranks 1st among all countries in the "Ease of credit" indicator, and 14th in the "Microfinance gross loans" indicator. Azerbaijan ranks high 33rd in the “Business Environment” category of the “Institutions” bloc, and 9th in the “Ease of starting a business” indicator. In the block "Human capital&research" the indicator "Pupil-teacher ratio, secondary" is in the high 6th place. It should be noted that Azerbaijan has improved its position on the integrated indicator "Education" in this bloc, rising from 123rd place in 2019 to 84th place in 2020. In addition, Azerbaijan ranks 5th among the CIS countries in the QS ranking of universities, after Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Belarus. Our country is in a high position in the direction of "innovation linkages": “University/industry research collaboration” indicator – 23^rd place, “State of cluster development” indicator – 29^th place.

Another important indicator is "Innovation Results" sub-index. While the “Innovation Resources” sub-index reflects the level of availability for innovation, the “Innovation Results” sub-index reflects the achievements in this area.

It should be noted that on the sub-index “Innovation Results” the results on the block “Creative Outputs” have increased; if last year it was 84th, this year it is 65th.

In this sub-index, an important integral indicator of "Intangible assets", mainly determined by intellectual property, is noteworthy. According to this indicator, Azerbaijan ranks 56th, improving the result in 2019 (76th place) by 20 points. Intellectual activity indicators occupy a fairly high place in this integrated indicator: for example, Azerbaijan's position in the ranking of industrial designs has improved by 18 points.

In the same sub-index, the indicator "ICTs&organizational model creation" is high - 35th place.

According to the integrated indicator "Knowledge creation" in the block "Knowledge and technology outputs", Azerbaijan has improved its position by 11 points. Azerbaijan ranks high in terms of intellectual property indicators such as "Patents by origin" (64th place) and "Utility models by origin" (50th place)