Innovation
Resource Poor: Innovate or Die
Throughout history, Japan has been seen as the great innovator in a wide range of fields. When looking to its neighbors Korea and China it obtained great knowledge, but was forced to adapt its new found information to suit the particular needs of the Japanese. This is most apparent in art, architecture and design.
Defining innovation as "the application of knowledge in a novel way, primarily for economic benefit," the Economist Magazine Intelligence Unit study ranks
Japan
,
Switzerland
, the
United States
and
Sweden
as the top four innovators among the 82 economies observed from 2002 to 2006. For 2007 to 2011, the study predicts that all four leading innovators will retain their rankings, but that
China
, which has already overtaken
Japan
to become the world's second-largest investor after the
United States
in research and development in absolute terms, is a country to watch in terms of acceleration in the innovation market.
