WEF Global Competitiveness Report 2015-2016
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Israel rated 3rd most innovative country in the world
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Solar Panels in Israel
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In the most recent Global Competitiveness Report 2015-2016 Israel was rated the 3rd most innovative country in the world. With the third highest number of patents per head, one of the highest spending on research and development as percentage of its economy and the highest concentration of startups per capita Israel proved itself as key player in innovation.
Israel's geography provides a rather challenging environment: about 60% of Israel's surface is an arid desert region, precipitation (rain, snow, etc.) has an average of 435 mm per year – the lowest being in southern Israel with less than 30 mm per year (in comparison to France with 867 mm per year for instance), a lack of arable land and natural fresh water resources.
In spite of these challenges Israelis managed to turn their country into the land of start-ups and innovation it is today - with a high degree of creativity and inventiveness. As "necessity is the mother of innovation" the most obvious inventions Israel came up with are related to agriculture (e.g. Drip irrigation that releases water in controlled, slow drips to provide precise crop irrigation and save water). But Israel is also at the origin of high-tech revolutions in many other fields such as medicine (e.g. PillCam, a swallowable pill size camera, the first Capsule endoscopy solution to record images of the digestive tract or tumor melting ultrasound) and ICT (e.g. USB flash drives, Instant text and online messaging such as Viber and ICQ). As a global player Israel helps to face the challenges we are dealing with worldwide.
Israel is in good company in the ranking. Many EU Member States are also world leaders in innovation: Finland (2), Germany (6), Sweden (7), Netherlands (8), Denmark (10). With such a strong input from both sides Israel and the EU have been strong cooperation partners in the field, amongst others through the Horizon 2020, the EU’s biggest Research and Innovation Programme ever with nearly €80 billion of funding available over 7 years – and with Israel as a full and successful partner.
Other categories where Israel did well in the Global Competitiveness Report include Health and Primary Education where Israel scored 6.2 points out of 6.87, Technological Readiness (5.7 out of 6.42) and Business Sophistication (4.9 out of 5.79).
The report assesses the competitiveness landscape of 140 economies, providing insight into the drivers of their productivity and prosperity. The Report series remains the most comprehensive assessment of national competitiveness worldwide. In total Israel ranks in the Top 30 of the most competitive countries.
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