NZ innovates better - and worse!

Recently released World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) figures show New Zealand coming 24th out of 139 economies in the Global Innovation Index in 2026. We rank 23rd among the 54 high-income group economies and 7th among the 17 economies in South East Asia, East Asia and Oceania. We had achieved 24th place in 2022, then slipped backwards, so on the face of it, this is good news.

But when we dig deeper into these figures, we find New Zealand’s ranking propped up by a strong institutional and regulatory environment (e.g. very good operational stability for businesses), along with middle of the range performances in education, R&D, infrastructure, market and business sophistication. 

The Global Innovation Tracker does show that we are slowly and steadily improving in many aspects of technology adoption, labour productivity and science and innovation investment, with the leap from 22nd to 17th place in Innovation Inputs supporting our overall improvement.

Where we are falling badly behind some of the other countries in our region is in our knowledge and technology outputs and creative outputs. In fact, we’ve sunk to our lowest ever score in total Innovation Outputs in the last seven years of the Global Innovation Index. 

Why should franchises care?

Bill Edwards of Edwards Global Services, whose own GlobalVue^TM index often has New Zealand high on the list of easiest places in the world for franchises to do business, says that franchise business owners should care about these global index rankings because of several important factors.

1. Innovation drives productivity, wage growth, long-term competitiveness and business stability to create the sort of markets where international brands can grow best.
2. WIPO runs the Madrid System, where much of the world’s intellectual property (including many franchise brands) is registered, protected and defended.
3. Our potential franchise growth markets (by export of products and services, or the international licencing of brands themselves) are changing over time as overperformers in the Index like India and Viet Nam (in our region) build capability faster than predicted.

And what of Australia?

Australia sits 4 places higher than us on the overall Index, with a lot of the power of their ranking driven by the strength of their education sector and its contribution to industry R&D collaboration and international engagement, and knowledge creation and impact. Yes, they have the power of a larger economy behind them, but it is partly this investment in creative output that is driving their franchise business growth now and into the future.