"On par with the U.K.": The official exaggerates the country's achievements in innovation development

Chairman of the State Committee for Science and Technology Sergey Shlychkov spoke about the advanced technologies of the Belarusian industry on November 24, 2024, in the “Accents” program on the “RTR Belarus” TV channel.

"We are currently at the level of European countries like Spain, Portugal, and Poland in terms of several indicators of innovation development. According to several other indicators, we are at the level of the U.K.," the official claimed.

The Global Innovation Index is being published annually on the World Intellectual Property Organization website. It presents a ranking of countries worldwide based on their level of innovation development, using about 80 assessment criteria, such as patents, education, research investments, access to financing, and others.  

This index ranks Belarus 85th out of 133 countries overall, at the level of Albania, Moldova, Bosnia and Herzegovina. Over the past three years, from 2021 to 2024, our country has dropped 23 points in this ranking.

Belarus now ranks last among all European countries. Poland is ahead of us by 14 points, Portugal — by 19 and Spain — by 22. 

WTF journalists also verified the indicators claimed to show Belarus on the same level as the UK. The latter ranks fifth in the overall ranking. For example, the two countries are similar in terms of electricity supply and government spending on education. Belarus surpassed the United Kingdom in seven indicators, such as the number of students per teacher, the share of university graduates in science and technology, the export of IT services, the mobile applications development rate, and others. However, for the vast majority of innovation metrics, the UK outscores Belarus by a lot.