Is Trinidad and Tobago an innovative nation? Computer says no

THIS COLUMN loves a global index. The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) has obliged with its annual Global Innovation Index, ranking 139 global economies to identify which countries are most successfully embracing and advancing new technology, scientific activity, and general creativity. The 2025 edition ranks Switzerland as the world’s top nation for innovation, with the USA following in third, China slotting in at 11th on the list, Canada at 17th, and India at 38th.

TT ranks 114th out of the 139 economies surveyed – bottom of the pile of high-income nations (yes, TT qualifies as a high-income nation), and 17th out of the 21-strong Latin American and Caribbean group. As far as this index is concerned, TT is a leading member of the “could do better” category.

How much better? WIPO has a helpful graph that plots the results by relative overperformance or underperformance. According to that chart, based on GDP per capita, TT should be more like Uruguay (68th on the index overall; fourth in the Latin America and Caribbean region) or Chile (51st overall, first in the region) to be considered adequately innovative given its economic advantages.

The WIPO Global Innovation Index is a massively complex piece of research, looking at seven broad categories to derive an innovation score for a particular country. That score can then be compared to others.

The seven categories surveyed are institutions, human capital and research, infrastructure, business sophistication, knowledge and technology outputs, and creative outputs. The ranking is interested in both how much innovation a country is using (termed “inputs”), as well as the innovation it produces (“outputs”).

In TT’s case, the index’s findings are peppered with little black clock faces, indicating the data is considered out of date. And some subcategories – such as the local feature film industry and the size of the national entertainment and media market – don’t get measured at all. Which is to say that even WIPO is aware that its analysis is not flawless.

For what it’s worth, WIPO rates its own confidence in the TT ranking with a margin of error that could see the rating shift from 112th to 124th. Given that TT is ranked 114th, unfortunately, that means WIPO thinks it’s far more likely to be overstating TT’s innovation score than underestimating it. Still, the analysis can only be as good as the data, and we know the data is not perfect.

Overall, WIPO’s index suggests TT is doing pretty well on the input side of the innovation equation. And not so well with outputs. In other words, TT looks like a place that could be producing a lot more tech and general innovation than it is currently.

Drill down into the data and you’ll see TT outperforming its ranking for institutions, human capital and research, and infrastructure. The survey reports TT’s strengths lie in areas such as government effectiveness (find someone to love you the way WIPO loves the TT public sector), the percentage of science and engineering graduates it produces, and electricity production.

There’s also credit due for the number of women with advanced degrees in TT’s workforce, and the overall number of people working in knowledge-intensive roles.

Basically, WIPO sees TT as a country that is producing a healthy number of highly educated individuals and offering them pretty solid resources for getting work done in a relatively stable political environment. And then things seem to go awry.

WIPO couldn’t find sufficient data to properly evaluate TT for market sophistication (stuff like financing for start-ups and venture capital statistics). And the survey found TT underperforming its lowly ranking for business sophistication (things like research collaborations between industry and universities), knowledge and technology outputs (eg, high-tech manufacturing and exports), and creative outputs (such as global brand value or mobile app creation).

By its own admission, WIPO’s analysis is imperfect. And maybe it’s looking in the wrong places for signs of TT’s innovation. There are more than a few filmmakers in TT, for example, but even they might say that the size of the national film industry is not the best way to gauge the state of innovation across the nation.

But perhaps it should not be ignored that the WIPO Global Innovation Index basically looked at TT and said, “You have the workforce of a technologically advanced economy, but you don’t seem to be doing much with it.”

The WIPO Global Innovation Index is available for free, online at WIPO’s website