Romania falls behind other regional competitors including Moldova, Montenegro, and Bulgaria in the 2015 Global Innovation Index. Only five other European countries rank lower than Romania in this ranking, namely Macedonia, Serbia, Ukraine, Bosnia, and Albania.

However, Romania ranks 54th out of 141 economies globally, a result which firmly places it in the top half of the index overall. On a global scale, Romania is placed just above Thailand, but below Vietnam. Romania also outranks bigger economies such as Brazil (70th), and India (81st).

Four out of the five highest ranking countries in the report are European with Switzerland, the UK, Sweden, and the Netherlands all occupying the top four spots, followed by the US.

The majority of the top 25 highest ranking countries have high income economies but Romania is ranked as having an upper middle income economy. In spite of this, Romania is a high performer within its own class. This year, Romania takes its place within the top 10 best performing upper middle income economies, displacing countries like Turkey and South Africa.

The survey ranks countries according to 79 indicators, such as ‘government effectiveness’ where Romania comes 72nd and ‘rule of law’ where Romania comes 58th. Romania’s performance largely varies across these factors. Areas where Romania performs particularly poorly in relation to other EU countries are ‘expenditure on education’ where Romania is ranked 107th and environmental performance (77th). Romania has also seen a fall in both private and government funded research and development levels. Both categories are seeing lower levels now than they did at the time of the financial crisis in 2008-09.

Romania performs especially well on its high-tech and medium tech output, finishing 26th above Belgium, Canada and Sweden. Entrepreneurs and small start-up owners can also rejoice as Romania is ranked as the 33rd easiest place to start a business. Romania is also 35th for the number of country-code top-level domains (.ro) per 1,000 people, and the number of YouTube video uploads.

The Global Innovation Index, in its 8th edition this year, surveys 141 economies around the world with the aim of producing an in-depth look at the innovative capabilities of every nation surveyed. The index is co-published by Cornell University, INSEAD Business School and the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). The full report can be found here.

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By Dale Harris, editorial intern