Innovation

Elspeth asks a good question in her previous post: Are you from an inventive country?

Hailing from Switzerland, I'd like to think I am. Switzerland is the home of the proverbial Swiss Army knife and many other relevant innovations, not the least of which is the world wide web invented at the CERN. The World Economic Forum's Global Competitiveness Report classifies Switzerland as an innovation driven economy, which ranks pretty high up in the Innovation pillar (rank in 125 countries):
Quality of scientific research institutions..........................1
Company spending on research and development..........1
University/industry research collaboration........................1
Intellectual property protection.........................................3
Capacity for innovation......................................................5
Government procurement of technology products...........6
Availability of scientists and engineers.............................6
Utility patents (hard data)..................................................6

One invention often attributed to Switzerland is the cuckoo clock. In Orson Welles' classic adaptation of Graham Greene's The Third Man, Harry Lime famously compares Italy's inventiveness to Switzerland: Under the Borgias, Italy had warfare, terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love, 500 years of democracy and peace, and all they produced was the cuckoo clock. In the best Ricola man manner, I'll have to rectify that: The Cuckoo Clock is actually a German invention.