It is a French victory that will please Emmanuel Macron, who wants to make France a “great nation of innovation”. According to the annual report of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), which assesses the innovation capacity of countries around the world based on scientific publications and patent applications, Paris is the leading scientific and technological hub in Europe. The next in the ranking, London and Munich, are in 20th and 22nd place respectively.
Paris owes this good performance in particular to subsidies paid by several organizations, such as the Public Investment Bank (Bpifrance), the National Research Agency or the France 2030 plan. Paris-Saclay University also stood out as a major center of innovation, bringing together Paris-Sud University, several major schools (CentraleSupélec, AgroParisTech, the Ecole Normale Supérieure de Cachan, the Institut d’Optique Graduate School) and public research organizations (including the National Center for Scientific Research, the Atomic Energy Commission and the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food and the Environment). A total of 230 research laboratories where nearly 15,000 researchers, engineers and doctoral students work.
But behind this success, France has also lost ground. In 12th position worldwide this year, Paris was 10th in the same ranking in 2022, and France then had four innovation centers in the top 100, compared to only three this year. Germany had ten but lost one, and the United Kingdom retains its three centers, notably the Tech City, in east London.
East Asia the big winner
The WIPO index, one of the UN agencies, especially marks the monopoly of East Asian countries at the top of the ranking. Japan still occupies first place, with the Tokyo-Yokohama hub, followed by China and Hong Kong, of which the Shenzhen-Hong Kong-Guangzhou triangle comes in second position, then South Korea and its capital Seoul. Beijing and Shanghai-Suzhou close the top 5. With 24 hubs including three leading ones, China ensures its dominance in innovation and technology year after year, thanks to a generous support policy. Chinese public investment in research and development (R&D) exceeded 2.5% of GDP in 2022, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
For the first time, China has surpassed the United States in the number of innovation centers. Quite a symbol, while the Sino-American rivalry has never been so strong. Expelled from the top 5, the United States still has 21 hubs, notably San Francisco-San José, thanks to Silicon Valley, 6th world leader, and Boston-Cambridge, in 8th position, where Harvard University and the famous Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Multipolar innovation
The report, which will be published in full on September 2, shows that innovation is increasingly globalized and multipolar. It also integrates into middle-income countries other than China, such as India, which can now boast of having four cutting-edge science and technology hubs in the top 100. “By bringing together science, business and entrepreneurs, these cities or regions are building an ecosystem that transposes scientific ideas in a tangible way on the ground,” comments WIPO Director General Daren Tang.
Due to the nature of these ecosystems, veritable nurseries for inventions of all kinds, innovation centers are mainly found in large urban areas, to the detriment of less populated cities. Thus, when we reduce the activity of the centers to the population density, the ranking changes: Cambridge, in the United Kingdom, takes the lead, followed by San José-San Francisco, Oxford (United Kingdom), Eindhoven (Netherlands) and Boston-Cambridge. A global phenomenon of metropolization of innovation, therefore, particularly marked in East Asia.