Innovation-driven growth future of Bangladesh

Innovation or envisioning is a global movement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) toward transforming the resilient, inclusive, and sustainable world.

According to the Oslo Manual under the European Communities and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), an innovation is a new or improved product or process (or a combination thereof) that differs significantly from the unit’s previous products or processes and that has been made available to potential users (product) or brought into use by the unit (process).

Previously, policymakers and economists considered innovation the R&D-based technological product innovation, mainly produced in-house and primarily in manufacturing industries. But such an innovation system is not widely popular until a technological breakthrough necessarily takes place as radical at the global knowledge frontier. This technological adoption plays a key role in innovation in the development process of low- or middle-income economies.

However, why should we focus on innovation in a changed world? A simple answer, innovation is urgent to support our economic growth sustainability since Bangladesh is on track with the fast-growing economy – the 35th largest economy in the world. Innovation is significant for developing and developed economies’ economic development and competitiveness. Innovation is focused as the center of all strategies and progress in many countries. Moreover, recognizing, celebrating, and branding innovation in emerging global markets is crucial for inspiring people – particularly the next generation of innovators and entrepreneurs.

Today, if we see the global innovation ecosystems, the Global Innovation Index (GII) 2022 captures the performance of the innovation ecosystem of 132 economies and records the most recent global innovation trends.

In the GII 2022, Switzerland ranks first for the 12th year in a row, followed by the United States and Sweden, the United Kingdom, and the Netherlands climbing to 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th position, respectively. Even though most European countries and North America are top ranks in innovation, many Asian countries are doing better in innovation trends, especially Korea, Singapore, China, Japan, and Hong Kong, ranking top 6th, 7th, 11th, 13th, and 14th innovative countries, respectively. India also ranks top 40th after China. But Bangladesh is far from these countries, ranking 102nd out of 132 countries in the GII index. Bangladesh’s innovation ranking is almost the bottom layer of the innovative country list. Even the condition of other SAARC countries is better than Bangladesh, whereas Srilanka ranks 85th, Pakistan ranks 87th, and Nepal ranks 111th after Bangladesh. Data is not found for Bhutan and Maldives in this region.

Bangladesh’s sectoral innovation is shown in a bit of detail with scoring and ranking in the figure where the areas of improvement can be identified and prioritized depending on the current progress. About higher to lower ranking scenarios in Bangladesh’s innovation, we find different areas of measurement such as institutions; infrastructure; market; business sophistication; creative outputs; knowledge and technology outputs; and human capital and research. With the specific status of these areas, the innovation is seen comparatively better in institutional setup (score 44.1 per cent, and rank 87th) than other measurement areas. The worst situation is found in our human capital and research condition (score 10.8 per cent, and rank 127th). From this picture, we get an overall direction toward further investment in areas or prioritized areas for improvement either strategically or financially.

So, how can we diffuse, adopt and internationalize our innovation? This is very challenging for a lower or middle-income country like Bangladesh since the research and development or industry-academia collaborative research needs to be more mature. It ultimately pushes the lower innovation ranking to the global index.

Government strategy is fragile here towards getting the innovative touch in all dimensions of development. But there is a positive signal in Bangladesh’s innovation capability, which is increasingly seen as its ability to achieve new technology adoption to digitalization process in various services. It embraces incremental innovation but “innovation without significant research.” Non-R&D innovation cannot be sustained by reaping the long-term benefits from a holistic approach.

Technological innovation should be interested in getting competitive advantages globally, and it must be integrated into the R&D-based activities for the country, especially the low and middle-income economies. Apart from this, the basic understanding of how innovation can evolve in the academic curriculum at all levels of education, along with an awareness campaigning in all the development projects. But the method of innovation itself may be changed significantly depending on the foreign investment in innovation-related activities and intangible resources at the firm, economy, and global levels. Adding or extending innovation performers from outside high-income countries and non-profit actors may be the strategic partners in an organizational development pathway.

However, a key challenge is considered in the context of actual innovation metrics worldwide. Direct official trials and quantification of innovation productions still need to be made available. For instance, there is no official data on the number of innovative activities – defined as the numeral value of new products, processes, or other innovations – for a particular innovation actor, institution, or any given country. Most existing measurements are not clarified with the appropriate capture of innovation outputs in the broader spectrum of innovation performers.

We need data, especially for the services sectors and public sector entities. It includes actual innovation surveys in all countries to provide a decent and reliable intelligence of cross-economy innovation output performance.

Finally, we should always consider whether the implications of the Deep Science and Digital Age waves can be a good fit for the needs and skills in developing countries like Bangladesh. The reality of innovation cannot be restricted to R&D-based publications, but it should have wider scopes becoming horizontal - including technical aspects, business models, and social.

The writer is an international research consultant. He can be contacted at [email protected]