Bloomberg recently released its ‘Innovation Index’, its list of the 50 most innovative countries on earth.

The Nordics are well-represented in the rankings with sub-headings giving even more weight to certain nations.

In the overall rankings Finland scores the highest of the Nordic nations, holding position number four and just below South Korea, Germany and Japan. Also in the top 10 is Sweden at number seven, with Denmark in number eleven. Norway is ranked at 15 while even tiny Iceland stands at number 36.

When analysed by its constituent parts the results are even more interesting. In the heading of ‘research and development’ Finland and Sweden stand at third and fourth respectively, with Denmark holding the sixth spot and Iceland coming in at twelfth (Norway stands at 23).

In manufacturing Sweden is the highest-ranked Nordic nation, with Iceland standing at ninth, and Norway, Finland and Denmark holding the eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth spots.

One sub-sector where the Nordics do particularly well is ‘research personnel’. This looks at the number of people working in R&D per million persons. Nordic nations take the top three spots with Finland, Iceland and Denmark topping the list and Norway and Sweden coming in at numbers eight and nine.

However it was not all good news and there were areas where the Nordic nations could show signs of improvement. In the ‘patents’ rankings which analyse the number of patents made Finland is the highest-ranked at number 13 while Norway and Sweden come in at 15 and 20.

If you are interested in learning more about the innovative talents of many Nordic nations we previously wrote this on the mobile gaming sector in Finland, home to giants such as Rovio and Supercell.