Union Minister of Commerce & Industry and Railways, Piyush Goyal will launch the Global Innovation Index (GII) on 24th July, 2019 in New Delhi. Director General, World Intellectual Property Organization, Mr. Francis Gurry, will also be present during the event.

The launch of GII will reveal the innovation rankings of economies and the findings for this year. It will be the 12th edition of GII with 129 countries under its observation. The GII measures how innovation friendly the environments of global economies are based on 80 detailed metrics.

The GII operates with a theme every year to track global innovation. This year’s theme is “Evaluating the Medical Innovation Scenario of the Next Decade”. It aims to highlight the role and dynamics of medical innovation in order to understand how it can form the future of healthcare and the potential impact this may have on economic growth.

The Global Innovation Index has been a charter for assessing the innovation capabilities of national economies worldwide. The initiative to understand how countries facilitate innovation was espoused by INSEAD and World Business in 2007. Since its genesis the GII has become a credible authority on providing insight into the multi-dimensional aspects of innovation-driven growth. The GII is a valuable bench marking tool that can help in gauging as well as encouraging public-private dialogue and where policy-makers, entrepreneurial leaders and other stakeholders can assess innovation progress on an annual basis.

On the 24th July 2019 there will be two panel discussions on subjects like Asia: The future hub of Innovation. The second panel discussion will be on Creating Healthy Lives - The Future of Medical Innovation.

There will also be a special session on India’s R&D Expenditure Ecosystem which will be addressed by Mr. Carsten Fink, Chief Economist of World Intellectual Property Organization, B.N. Satpathy, Member of Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (PMEAC) and Prof. K Vijay Raghavan, Principal Scientific Advisor to Government of India.

Ratan P Watal, Principal Adviser, NITI Aayog and Member Secretary, PMEAC will release India’s R&D Expenditure Ecosystem report.

Secretary Department for Promotion of Industry & Internal Trade, Ramesh Abhishek, will deliver the special address during the launch of the Global Innovation Index 2019.

Innovation benchmarking guides national policy by ranking economies and highlighting medical innovation priorities for future healthcare. Launch of the Global Innovation Index 2019 will present annual innovation rankings and findings across 129 economies using 80 detailed metrics to assess how national environments support innovation, with a thematic focus on medical innovation and a session on India's R&D Expenditure Ecosystem to inform policy and public-private dialogue.