RELEASE: LONDON TOPS NEW YORK, TOKYO FOR INNOVATION – HOME OF NEXT APPLE

LONDON TOPS NEW YORK, TOKYO FOR INNOVATION – HOME OF NEXT APPLE IN LEAD INDEX

10th Annual Innovation Cities Index 2016-2017 Released

2thinknow // MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA — London extended its lead over New York and a resurgent Tokyo to be named the world’s most innovative city in 2016-2017 in the 10th annual Innovation Cities Index, released by global innovation data agency 2thinknow in Melbourne today.

The top three cities surpassed previous winner Silicon Valley (San Francisco-San Jose) and twice winner, Boston. Rounding out the top ten cities globally, were Los Angeles, Singapore, and Toronto, followed by Paris and surprisingly Vienna, which was ranked highly on economic and social innovation.

“What really surprised us this year, was the resurgence of Tokyo, moving up to eclipse rival cities liken Boston. They showed clear promise,” 2thinknow’s Director of Data, Christopher Hire stated. “Vienna and Paris have a long history of resurgence and innovation, so we shouldn’t rule out their eventual climb to number one global city in a few years, proving that innovation can come from cities all over the world.”

LONDON LEADERSHIP

“London’s clear repeat victory indicates a strong view of innovation and focus on observation of democracy, in embracing the results of ‘Brexit’ – showcasing the importance of an orderly acceptance of the results of democratic process, and a new British ‘stiff upper lip’ resilience to unprecedented change.”

The index classified 500 cities into four bands for innovation based on scores derived from 162 indicators for measuring conditions conducive to creating innovation in a city. The top band was ‘Nexus’ cities of which there were 53 cities. There were 125 cities in the next ‘Hub’ category. 260 cities were in the next globally competitive ‘Node’ category.

After the classification process, the cities are ranked by the analysts.

“This year innovation can come from more locations than ever, due to digital cities a broader number of cities score within the second ‘Hub’ classification which means our data and analysis found greater competition between cities below the top few percent of ‘Leadership’ Cities which have separated from the pack. Innovation often has peaks and valleys, with massive variations within nations and regions.”

GOOD NEWS? THE NEXT APPLE

“The good news is that, ‘garage innovators’ in the top Nexus and Hub cities have a better chance than ever to see their ideas become global, much like Apple did, starting in their garage with little or no financial investment.”

Nine of the top Nexus cities were in Asia, including Seoul (11), Sydney (14), Beijing (30) and Osaka (50). In North America, Dallas-Ft. Worth (16) and Atlanta (18) improved dramatically in ranking, and ten more North American cities replaced European cities this year. Fast-rising top-ranked cities were Barcelona (13), Dallas-Ft.Worth (16), Houston (22), Madrid (23), Beijing (30) and Denver (42).

Another key observation in the analysis was ‘Recovery cities’, which was shown with the inclusion of cities such as Detroit and Athens (climbing 223 places) based on renewed economic activity.

“Our index is often a lead index – in 2009, we predicted the resilience of German cities. Cities that do well in our index can go on to be recognised in other indexes. We see our index is a trendsetter that forecasts future progress. Right now we can see Detroit, Buenos Aires and Athens are showing strong recovery signs across all the underlying data. It seems innovation is leading to early stage economic improvement which has greater flow on effects for these cities, which is really exciting to see,” Hire concluded.

The Index has been published annually since 2007 by commercial data provider, 2thinknow to measure each cities pre-conditions for innovation.

Behind the index is the analyst’s insight that cities with higher rates of innovation will experience higher economic output, and be perceived as the best destinations to invest in commercial product, service or social innovation without a specific industry focus.

Besides the global index the regional indexes produced a wide variety of results in four key global regions. All indexes are published on www.innovation-cities.com/indexes

-Ends-

SPOKESPERSON

Christopher Hire
Director Data, 2thinknow
Melbourne +61386780319 California +16692413435 Vienna +43720775886
media@2thinknow.com (Email for Report excerpt and Excel rankings)

BACKGROUND

Over 75% of cities, with a population of over one million residents monitor the Innovation Cities Index results, and many major entities such as Samsung, PWC, Brookings Institution, UN-Habitat and Jones Lang LaSalle use the Index results to assess broad-based city innovation.

2thinknow supplies raw data to Fortune 500 corporations and leading management consultants to assist them with making key business decisions.

Melbourne based company 2thinknow was started in 2006 as a commercial data provider and training organization, who have modeled the innovation process based on city data. www.2thinknow.com

JOURNALIST RESOURCES:

*** Journalist-only preliminary report and Excel rankings available email media@2thinknow.com ***

Explanatory Resources: Annual Overview | FAQ | 162 Indicators | Classifications

Full 2016-2017 Indexes: Top 100 | Global | Americas | Europe | Asia | Emerging

Plain Text links:

GLOBAL 500: https://innovation-cities.com/?p=9774

TOP 100: https://innovation-cities.com/?p=9779

AMERICAS: https://innovation-cities.com/?p=9775

EUROPE: https://innovation-cities.com/?p=9777

ASIA: https://innovation-cities.com/?p=9778

EMERGING: https://innovation-cities.com/?p=9776

Journalist-limited preliminary report and Excel rankings available email media@2thinknow.com

Simple Table for Reproduction

(Attribute to Innovation Cities™ Index by 2thinknow).