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

The release of the third edition of the index – the first and second editions were launched in October, 2019 and January, 2021, respectively – corroborates the Government’s continuous commitment towards transforming the nation into an innovation-driven economy.

The India Innovation Index 2021 is set against the backdrop of 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 innovation capacities and ecosystems at the sub-national level, highlights the recent factors and catalysts for promoting such crisis-driven innovation.

The third edition strengthens the scope of innovation analysis in the country by drawing on the framework of the Global Innovation Index (GII). The new framework presents a more nuanced and comprehensive outlook for measuring innovation performance in India, with the introduction of 66 unique indicators, as compared to the 36 indicators used in the preceding edition (viz. India Innovation Index 2020). Through this comprehensive framework, the index evaluates the innovation performance of all the states and union territories in India. The states and the union territories have been divided into 17 ‘Major States’, 10 ‘North-East and Hill States’, and 9 ‘Union Territories and City States’, for effectively comparing their performance.

A special section has also been introduced in the India Innovation Index 2021 for showcasing the detailed analysis of the drivers of innovation, by evaluating the improvement in the indicators. The states can assess their position and the factors that led to a change in their ranking vis-à-vis that in the India Innovation Index 2020.

With the India Innovation Index, NITI Aayog has commenced a journey to develop a coherent tool for benchmarking the innovation ecosystem of the country’s states and union territories, thereby fostering both competitive and cooperative federalism amongst them.

The event will also be live-streamed at: https://youtu.be/h9Esk5EFpP4

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DS/LP/AK