The Top 100 Global Innovators in Innovation

Clarivate Plc, a global leader in providing trusted information and insights to accelerate the pace of innovation, released the Top 100 Global Innovators™ 2022 list. Drawing on Clarivate™ data, the annual list identifies organizations demonstrating consistent, above-the-bar innovation excellence and which sit at the very top of the global innovation ecosystem.

As global ideation patterns change and the way they are measured evolves, the composition of the Top 100 Global Innovators changes too. This year more than half (54) of the Top 100 Global Innovators 2022 come from Asia, signaling the region’s growing dominance on the global innovation stage. The majority presence of Asian companies in this year’s list is driven by Japan, which boasts 35 Top 100 Global Innovators. Taiwan achieves nine, Mainland China and South Korea each have five organizations listed.

Gordon Samson, Chief Product Officer, Clarivate, said, “Global inventive activity today is far higher, more diverse and more complex than a decade ago, when we first launched Top 100 Global Innovators. The Top 100 Global Innovators 2022 exemplify above-the-bar excellence in innovation. We congratulate this year’s Top 100 companies. They demonstrate the capabilities, consistency and creativity that are delivering new value and ingenuity for the world.”

Asia’s dominance is further underlined in the electronics and computing sector, the largest industry sector of this year’s Top 100 list, as 26 out of 28 Top 100 companies come from the region. The accelerating technological development efforts within the mobility sector sees the number of automotive firms included this year rise to 12, making the sector the second largest contributor to the list.

Top 100 snapshot

The key findings for 2022 show:

• The Top 100 Global Innovators 2022 come from 12 countries and regions. Japan tops the list with the most Top 100 Global Innovators (35), followed by the United States (18), Taiwan and Germany (nine each), France (eight) and Mainland China and South Korea (five each).
• A doubling in the number of automotive firms (from six in 2021 to 12 this year) including General Motors and Hyundai, companies predicted in the Innovators to Watch reports[1] in 2020 and 2021. Ford, Volkswagen and Kia Motors also feature, joining 11-time Top 100 Global Innovators Honda and Toyota.
• A 100% increase in the number of aerospace and defense firms, with the addition of Rolls-Royce and the return of Safran and Airbus, all European firms.
• Growing prominence of electronics manufacturers and semiconductor fabrication firms based in Taiwan; Innovators to Watch AU Optronics, Delta Electronics and Wistron; returnees Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) and MediaTek; and the first-time recognition of Realtek Semiconductors.
• Mainland Chinese e-commerce powerhouse Alibaba, another 2021 Innovator to Watch, alongside affiliate and digital payment giant Ant Group are first-time entrants.
• Three national state-funded research organizations make the list this year – the Industrial Technology Research institute (ITRI), Taiwan as well as the Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) and the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), both in France.

The direction of innovation to come

Using existing trends derived from the measures and metrics of Top 100 Global Innovators 2022 to look ahead, the next four years will likely see a significant acceleration in the pace of global innovation. Almost a third of all patented inventions could publish during this period.[2] This wider pool of innovative thinking will likely come from companies in the telecommunications and industrial systems segments, followed by automotive.

View of the top 1,000

Extending the view to the top 1,000 entities reveals the performance of countries, regions and industry sectors, Clarivate sees:

• Evidence of the power and scale of innovation is seen at the largest conglomerates such as GE, LG, Hitachi and Siemens.
• European innovators on average rank highest in the Top 1,000.
• Academic research focused entities perform large-scale development but lean on industry to commercialize inventions.

Samson concluded, “Innovators today need techniques and data to help them better understand the ecosystem and the influences so that they can thrive in the fast-paced world of modern innovation. At Clarivate, our aim is constant – to provide guidance and clarity to innovators, large and small, everywhere. We acknowledge them for their tireless efforts in advancing the knowledge frontier and in doing so, making the world a better place for all.”

Learn more about Top 100 Global Innovators 2022 and who features on this year’s list here.

Methodology

Clarivate has recognized the world’s innovators with the Top 100 Global Innovators program annually since 2012. The Top 100 Global Innovators model of excellence calculation uses a mathematical foundation focused on comparison. The methodology has been refreshed for 2022, with the new model of innovation measurement focused on consistent high performance and scale in innovativeness, where all ideas compete equally. The report analyzes data in the Derwent World Patents Index™ (DWPI™) and the Derwent Patents Citation Index™. For full information on the methodology used to identify the 2022 list, see here. 

[1] Innovators to watch report explores organizations that have improved their rank over time and are progressing in ways that could put them on the pathway to inclusion in the Top 100 list in the future.

[2] These calculations exclude utility models (patents with a shorter term focused on simpler technologies).