Editor’s note: In 2011 and 2015, two separate studies ranked 82 countries (2011) and
139 countries (2015) on their creativity were published. Compiled by the Martin Prosperity
Institute (MPI) at the University of Toronto attempts to rank knowledge
economies by that trait. Known as the Global
Creativity Index (GCI), researchers defined creativity as the product of three
measurable variables, "the Three Ts": technology, talent and
tolerance to create their ranking. "Technology" rankings were
determined by looking at investment levels in research and development, plus
patents per capita. National "talent" was evaluated as a composite of
the percentage of adults with higher-education degrees and the percentage of
workforce involved in creative industries. Interestingly, the third factor in
MPI’s creativity index was "tolerance": a ranking based on how each
country treats its immigrants, racial and ethnic minorities, and others. The
first study was which ranked 89 countries produced in 2011; Nigeria was not
ranked in this version. Now again in the most recent study which ranked 139
countries Nigeria was also excluded.
What
makes one country more “creative” than another? A new study (pdf) compiled by
the Martin Prosperity Institute (MPI) at the University of Toronto attempts to
rank knowledge economies by that elusive trait.
It’s
called the Global Creativity Index (GCI). To create their ranking, researchers
defined creativity as the product of three measurable variables, “the Three
Ts”: technology, talent and tolerance.
“Technology”
rankings were determined by looking at investment levels in research and
development, plus patents per capita. National “talent” was evaluated as a
composite of the percentage of adults with higher-education degrees and the
percentage of workforce involved in creative industries. Interestingly, the
third factor in MPI’s creativity index was “tolerance”: a ranking based on how
each country treats its immigrants, racial and ethnic minorities, and others.
To
come to these results, researchers analyzed 139 countries and ranked them
within each category. (Countries for which complete data could not be sourced
were not included, and it’s worth noting that these are generally places with
relatively low levels of economic development.) Overall creativity (GCI) was
quantified as the average of each country’s rankings across categories, and
divided once more by the total number of observations used to determine each T.
(Patent applications per capita, creative-class measure, etc.)
Based
on MPI’s definition of creativity, it comes as no surprise that there’s a
strong link between each nation’s creativity ranking and its overall economic
development.
“The
GCI is closely associated with key measures of economic and social progress.
Nations that score highly on the GCI have higher levels of economic output,
entrepreneurship, economic competitiveness, and overall human development,” the
report concludes. “Creativity is also closely associated with urbanization,
with more urbanized nations scoring higher on the GCI.”
Researchers
also claim to have found a link between social equality and creativity.
“Overall, we find that nations that score high on the GCI have, on balance,
greater levels of equality,” MPI found. “While some countries, like the United
States and the United Kingdom, achieve high GCI scores alongside relatively
high levels of inequality. Generally speaking, higher levels of global
creativity are associated with lower levels of inequality.”
Originally published in
QUARTZ AFRICA
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