Uttra Pradesh climbs to 7th rank in India Innovation Index 2021

Uttar Pradesh has improved its performance by two places, bagging seventh rank in India Innovation Index 2021 - a comprehensive tool for the evaluation and development of the country's innovation ecosystem.

The state has been ranked seventh amongst the major states category as compared to ninth rank in 2020.

The India Innovation Index 2021 report was released by Niti Aayog in New Delhi on Thursday.

UP scored highest in business environment, high cluster strength and significant share of manufacturing and service sector as a percentage of gross state domestic product (GSDP), officials said.

The state has emerged in the top five states under the knowledge-output pillar. This high score is an outcome of a rise in startups and new businesses, they said.

"Innovation-led entrepreneurship is key to 'Make in India' and 'Aatmanirbhar Bharat' programmes and the state was determined to create an innovation-friendly environment to give further impetus to startups, manufacturing and services," Chief Executive Officer of Invest UP, Abhishek Prakash said.

With a score of 6.18, Uttar Pradesh has scored above the national average of 5.81 in Knowledge Diffusion due to a high share of ICT exports, high-tech exports and citations, he said.

Knowledge Diffusion indicates knowledge absorption capacity of the state having two sub pillars-- knowledge dissemination, and creative goods and services.

The India Innovation Index, prepared by Niti Aayog and the Institute for Competitiveness, is an assessment framework which ranks states and the union territories on their innovation performance.

The third edition of the index released on Thursday highlighted the scope of innovation analysis in the country by drawing on the framework of the Global Innovation Index.