Worldview Scorecard

Our third annual Scientific American Worldview Scorecard exemplifies the dynamic, ever-evolving landscape of international life science innovation and, perhaps more important, the maturing strategy in our presentation of the data to best serve biotechnology’s vast global stakeholders. Our mission, as in past years, is to generate a constructive dialogue on the many ways countries can enhance and leverage opportunities in the life sciences to serve their citizens, their economies and the world at large. We are fully aware that the task of evaluating the complex set of factors and conditions that drive any given nation’s “innovation capacity” is imperfect, at best. In a February 2011 article in The New Yorker titled “The Order of Things,” author and social critic Malcolm Gladwell challenges the relevance of broad ranking systems, particularly taking to task those that are both heterogeneous—having many disparate items to be ranked—and comprehensive—having many different categories within the ranking. Although Gladwell focuses on a few key examples, namely rankings of cars and U.S. colleges, his larger point is to elucidate the inherent biases of such lists, and their limitations in producing meaningful results for the audiences they purport to serve. He warns of flimsy “proxy” data and too many “implicit ideological choices” clouding what might seem like firm statistical evidence.

Worldview could not agree more with Gladwell’s cautionary treatise. The publishers of any rigorous survey must constantly evaluate its relevance so that it continues to improve and truly serve its diverse readership. As in previous years, this edition of the Scientific American Worldview Scorecard attempts to make sense of the many factors involved in building a strong and thriving life science sector, while allowing for the wide variety of sizes of nations, as well as for the broad scope of criteria and categories that might vary in importance among different audiences. To this end, we are continuing our practice of averaging gross and relative metrics among nations so that we can compare large countries on par with smaller ones. Additionally, this year we are examining more closely the individual categories—each composed of various components—that make up the final “innovation score,” since these subelements can be just as if not more important than a final ranking number. For example, if a vice president of research is looking to expand R&D operations in a particular nation and capitalize on its perceived growing talent pool, she might be much more interested in the category that addresses education and workforce capabilities than in the category of intellectual property enforceability, which is, of course, crucially important for other decisions. Similarly, a scientist deciding upon a place to set up a new biotechnology company might want to know where there is the greatest enterprise support, or where there is a growing mass of similar companies. And when it comes to a global sales operation, data on market size, ease of doing business and other related metrics are going to be the primary considerations.

Nonetheless, we still stand by our offering of a final score. This synthesized quantity can be seen as shorthand for a lot of the complex elements that drive a culture of innovation. But by no means is it a substitute for all of the other important constituent parts. An appropriate analogy might come from the world of cinema: Who would watch the Academy Awards and only be concerned with the category of Best Picture?

Another aspect to the Worldview Scorecard is our continued expansion of the network of partners and advisers with whom we work. This year we are pleased to include data from IMS Health on market sizes and product sales, factors that are relevant to commercial growth and shed light on future trends. We are also pleased that IMS will be helping us continue to find new and better ways to survey the global landscape of life science development, and we will be pursuing further customized data gathering with the organization in future editions, both in print and on the web.

As we unveil this year’s Scorecard, and hopefully spark a renewed discussion of innovation strategies, our rationale for this ongoing project bears repeating: Biotechnology can enable countries to improve their economies while enhancing the quality of life and health of their citizens. And while there are many paths toward innovative solutions and many groups and individuals across the globe pursuing them, we feel that any endeavor that elevates the discussion of these pursuits is a worthy and commendable one. This, ultimately, is the reader service that we aim to provide.