Essay: Russia is far behind the USA and China as far as innovation and Russia's ability to innovate is likely going to get worse

During his annual phone-in with the public in 2019, President Vladimir Putin described low productivity as “one of the most acute and important” problems facing Russia.^[1]

The United States is a leader in technology and innovation and outperforms both China and Russia in this regard (See: The USA is more innovative and productive than China and Russia). In 2023, the USA ranked #3 in the world in Global Innovation Index and China was ranked 12th, see: World’s innovation leaders, gauging the innovation performance of 132 economies.

In 2023, Russia was ranked 51st in the world as far as the Global Innovation Index.^[2] According the Global Innovation Index: "In 2023, global innovation index for Russian Federation was 33.31 index. Global innovation index of Russian Federation fell gradually from 39.14 index in 2014 to 33.31 index in 2023." (A score of 0 is the weakest a country can obtain).^[3]

In addition, there are a number of factors which indicate that Russia's ability to compete against other countries in terms of index is going to get worse as can be seen by the essays and other material below:

1 Russia is experiencing a large brain drain
2 Russia's national IQ and its potential decline in national IQ due to socioeconomic factors
3 One of the foremost scholars on Russia, who is fairly friendly in his commentary on Russia/Vladimir Putin, said that Putin has made Russia less dynamic
- 3.1 Vladimir Putin on Americans' creativity/openness
4 There is a symbiotic relationship between creativity and happiness. Russia is an unhappy place
- 4.1 Why are the Russians so unhappy?
- 4.2 Videos on why Russia is so depressing
5 High income countries are rarely authoritarian countries in our technological age driven by innovation
6 Other essays about Russia
- 6.1 Russia
7 User:Conservative's essays
8 References

Russia is experiencing a large brain drain

Russia's massive brain drain is ravaging the economy - these stunning figures show why it will soon be smaller than Indonesia's, Business Insider, September 2023

Russia's economy faces a 'massive brain drain' as over 1 million young workers exit labor force, Markets Insider, 2023

The Great Russian Brain Drain, Novaya Gazeta Europe, 2023

As Russia sees tech brain drain, other nations hope to gain, Associated Press, 2022

Russia's national IQ and its potential decline in national IQ due to socioeconomic factors

Russia is ranked 35th in the world in terms its National IQ with a National IQ Score of 96.29.^[4]

Socioeconomic factors have an effect on intelligence.^[5] As a result, socioeconomic factors can cause differences in regional intelligence levels (for example, wealth which can affect the quality of education, health care and nutrition). Although social scientists have disputes about the accuracy of IQ scores in a given region, regions do vary in terms of their IQ scores.^[6]^[7]^[8] Ethnic groups facing discrimination as immigrants and their IQs temporarily dropping and then later rebounding when the discrimination is over, strongly suggests that IQ is significantly affected by one's environment and not due to any inherent and permanent genetic differences between races.^[9]

For a number of reasons, I am not bullish on Russia's socioeconomic future which I cited in the below essays:

One of the foremost scholars on Russia, who is fairly friendly in his commentary on Russia/Vladimir Putin, said that Putin has made Russia less dynamic

See also: Creativity

Openness to experience is important to one's level of creativity.^[10]

Countries that are less dynamic and have less openness are often less innovative and creative. And creativity is important to innovation.

Russia scholar Richard Sakwa is one of the foremost scholars on Russia. He is often friendly in his commentary on Russia and Vladimir Putin and was featured of the pro-Russia YouTube channel The Duran on March, 11, 2024).^[11]

In the below videos, Richard Sawka indicates that under Putin Russia has become less dynamic:

The Putin Paradox: The Missed Opportunity of 1989 & Beyond | Feb. 12, 2020, video (Russia scholar Richard Sakwa)
Putin Debate | Richard Sakwa | Oxford Union, video, 2020 (Talks about stagnation in Russia)
President Putin asks outgoing government to remain at work - Richard Sakwa, 2020
Putin Debate | Richard Sakwa | Oxford Union, 2014 (Achievements and downsides of Putin)

Vladimir Putin on Americans' creativity/openness

Vladimir Putin at a conference.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin, a frequent critic of the United States, admitted about American's openness, open-mindedness and creativity: "I like the creativity. Creativity when it comes to tackling your country's problems. They're openness. Openness and open-mindedness. Because it allows them to unleash the inner potential of their people. And because of that America has achieved such amazing results."^[12]

Switzerland, Sweden, the United States, the United Kingdom and Singapore are the world’s most innovative economies in 2023, according to WIPO’s Global Innovation Index (GII), as a group of middle-income economies have emerged over the past decade as the fastest climbers of the ranking.^[13]^[14]^[15]

VisualCapitalist.com ranked the USA 3rd in innovation in 2023.^[16]

There is a symbiotic relationship between creativity and happiness. Russia is an unhappy place

There is a symbiotic relationship between creativity and happiness (In other words, being happier make you more creative. In addition, being more creative makes one happier.).^[17]^[18]^[19]^[20]

Russia is an unhappy place (See: Are the Russians as unhappy as they claim they are?).

In 2023, Russia ranked 74 out of 150 countries on the World happiness index.^[21] The World Happiness Index 2023 Report will mark its 10th anniversary with the Globe Happiness Reflect, which compiles data from international surveys to show how people rank their lives in more than 150 countries.^[22]

According to Statista.com, the happiness index, calculated as the difference between shares of happy and unhappy people, reached 18 percent in Russia in 2021, down from 51 points in 2016. To compare, an average of 44 countries surveyed worldwide was measured at 43 percent in 2021, having increased from the previous year.^[23]