NITI Aayog to Release 3rd Edition of India Innovation Index

On July 21, 2022, the NITI Aayog will release the third edition of the India Innovation Index at an event in NITI Bhawan. The India Innovation Index 2021 will be unveiled by Suman Bery, Vice-Chairman of NITI Aayog, in the presence of Dr. V K Saraswat, Member; Parameswaran Iyer, Chief Executive Officer, and other dignitaries.

The release of the third edition of the index – the first and second editions was released in October 2019 and January 2021, respectively – confirms the government's ongoing commitment to transforming the country into an innovation-driven economy.

The backdrop for the India Innovation Index 2021 is the pandemic, which has disrupted the global demographic landscape. Resilience and crisis-driven innovation have helped India bounce back, in these trying times. The India Innovation Index 2021, which examines sub-national innovation capacities and ecosystems, highlights recent factors and catalysts for promoting such crisis-driven innovation.

The third edition broadens the scope of innovation analysis in the country by drawing on the Global Innovation Index framework (GII). The new framework provides a more nuanced and comprehensive outlook for measuring innovation performance in India, with the addition of 66 new indicators, up from 36 in the previous edition (viz. India Innovation Index 2020).

The index evaluates the innovation performance of all Indian states and union territories using this comprehensive framework. To effectively compare their performance, the states and union territories have been divided into 17 'Major States,' 10 'North-East and Hill States,' and 9 'Union Territories and City States.'

A special section in the India Innovation Index 2021 has also been added to showcase the detailed analysis of the drivers of innovation by evaluating the improvement in the indicators.

The states can evaluate their position and the factors that contributed to a change in their ranking in the India Innovation Index 2020.

The India Innovation Index is the first step in NITI Aayog's journey to create a coherent tool for benchmarking the innovation ecosystems of the country's states and union territories, fostering both competitive and cooperative federalism among them.