«Too little, too late? Switzerland is losing ground in fast-improving technologies» | New publication by Matthias Niggli and Christian Rutzer in Innoscape

Matthias Niggli and Christian Rutzer

Swiss-based innovations are concentrated mainly in rather slowly-improving technology domains, even in areas where the country has been traditionally strong. Swiss firms are nevertheless deeply involved in fast-improving cutting-edge technologies. But they tend to perform these activities more intensively abroad. This could be a cause for concern for Switzerland’s future as a research location.

Technologies develop and improve at very different paces. For example, researchers from MIT (Singh et al., 2021) estimate that Dynamic Information Exchange and Enterprise Networks Access Managementtechnologies are improving at an astonishing annual rate of 216% and 195%, respectively. Only slightly behind are Data Encryption systems and Data Management for Automating E-commerce Activities with annual improvement rates of 188% and 179%, respectively. Conversely, progress in rather traditional domains takes place at a much slower pace. For example, improvements in Mechanical Skin Treatmentoccur at an annual rate of 2% and in Bio-affecting Pharmaceuticals at a rate of 7%.

Generally, technologies that show the most dramatic improvement are all related to the digital domain. These domains are also those most likely to produce disruptive changes (Triulzi et al., 2020) and high value creation in the future (Hoisl et al., 2015 and Hall, 2007). Thus, for a country’s future growth and prosperity, it is important to provide a framework in which innovators can specialize in these fast-improving technologies. Building on the research of Singh et al., 2021 allows us to better understand whether this is the case for Switzerland.

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