These are the world's most innovative countries

The Bloomberg Innovation Index ranks the world's most pioneering economies, according to the most recent data.

Using factors such as research, productivity, patent activity, researcher concentration, development spending and density of high-tech public companies, the index calculates a total score for each country.

Spoiler alert: Scandinavian countries storm the charts, and the UK did not make the top 15:

1. South Korea

2. Sweden

3. Germany

4. Switzerland

5. Finland

6. Singapore

7. Japan

8. Denmark

9. U.S.

10. Israel

11. France

12. Austria

13. Belgium

14. Norway

15. Netherlands

South Korea holds on to the top spot from last year, with an impressive total score of 89.00.

Sweden climbs from third to second place, thanks to government finance for small firms and an emphasis on research and development, as well as a cultural propensity towards personal ambition rather than an emphasis on the collective.

Countries in the top 15 which have fallen in ranking by one place are Germany, the U.S., France and Ireland.

Japan fell by three spots, from fourth last year to seventh, as Japanese currency the yen struggles to recover from a two-year slide.

Most dramatically, Russia plummeted from number 12 to number 26, due to sanctions and low energy prices.

Here are the top 50 most innovative countries in one interactive map, ranked by total score.

This is the full set of data, including all the deciding categories and showing comparisons to last year's results.

Picture: Bloomberg

HT Bloomberg

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