Two major U.S. surveys rank Israel among most powerful, innovative countries

US News and World Report and Bloomberg News both placed Israel in their top ten.

By DANIEL J. ROTH
Updated: JANUARY 24, 2018 11:47
THE TEL AVIV skyline (photo credit: REUTERS)
THE TEL AVIV skyline
(photo credit: REUTERS)
NEW YORK - Two major US publications have listed Israel within their top ten rankings, citing the country’s military prowess and innovation capabilities, respectively.
Web-based publication US News and World Report, best known for its influential ranking lists, named Israel as the 8th most powerful nation in the world. Meanwhile, Bloomberg News listed the Jewish state as the 10th most innovative, hailing its high-tech industry and technological advances.
Partnered with global marketing communications company BAV Group and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, US News surveyed more than 21,000 people from four regions of the world and asked them to associate 80 countries with specific attributes.
The power aspect of the survey measured how “economically” and “politically influential” a country was and took into account both its “strong international alliances and strong military alliances.”
“Israel has a technologically advanced market economy with cut diamonds, high-technology equipment and pharmaceuticals among its major exports,” US News also noted in its report, adding, however, that the county still “has one of the most unequal economies in the Western world, with significant gaps between the rich and poor.”
Rounding out the top 10 after Israel were two Arab rivals: Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The online news organization ranked Israel 30th overall in terms of “Best Countries” out of a list of 80. The United States, like last year, was placed at number 1 while Slovenia ranked dead last at number 80.
Bloomberg News ranked Israel number 10 on its list of most innovative countries, using an index that annually ranks economies by analyzing seven contributing factors such as research and development, spending and the concentration of public hi-tech companies.
“The 2018 ranking process began with more than 200 economies,” Bloomberg stated in its report published Tuesday. 
“Each was scored on a 0-100 scale based on seven equally weighted categories. Nations that didn’t report data for at least six categories were eliminated, trimming the list to 80. Bloomberg released the top 50 and category scores within this cohort.”
South Korea topped the list for the third year in a row, followed by Sweden, Singapore, Germany, Switzerland, Japan, Finland, Denmark and France.
The US fell to 11th place from ninth mainly because of an eight-spot slump in the post-secondary, or tertiary, education-efficiency category, which includes the share of new science and engineering graduates in the labor force, Bloomberg said.
Like last year, Israel achieved first place in the “researcher concentration category,” or the number of professionals – including postgraduate PhD students – engaged in R&D per million people in the country. The country was ranked second and trailed only South Korea in the “R&D intensity” category, or R&D expenditure as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP).
Israel also did well in “hi-tech density” – the number of domestically domiciled hi-tech public companies – placing fifth, just after the South Korea and Germany.
Sharon Udasin contributed to this report.