By Ronin
The recent Nobel Prize in Economics awarded to Philippe Aghion, Peter Howitt and Joel Mokyr should be a wake-up call for Peru. The creative destruction approach—the process by which new ideas replace old ones and drive progress—demonstrates something essential: innovation It only flourishes when there is a State that creates the right rules and incentives for the private sector to dare to take risks. Without that State that inspires confidence and accompanies entrepreneurship, innovation does not take off. And that explains why Peru, once again, is falling behind.
According to the Global Innovation Index 2025 (GII), prepared by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), Peru ranks 80th out of 139 countries, which represents a decline from 71st place out of 141 countries in 2015. In Latin America we are seventh among eleven economies, far behind Chile (51), Brazil (52) and Mexico (58). And among upper-middle-income economies—our comparison group—we rank 22 out of 35. In other words, our innovative performance is stagnant. As seen in Chart 1, our level of innovation barely corresponds to our level of development, while countries like China or Thailand already show innovative performance above their per capita income, and are on their way to entering the group of advanced economies.
The GII is made up of 78 indicators and is divided into two large dimensions: the enabling conditions of innovation (inputs) and innovative results (outputs). In the first subindex we occupy position 72, and in the second, position 93. This reveals something worrying: we have the bases, but we cannot convert them into results. We have talent, but not an institutional environment to accompany it. And that environment depends, to a large extent, on a State that functions as a partner of private capital, not as an obstacle to it.
A State that regulates well, protects competition and guarantees stability is the innovator’s best ally. But ours usually acts like its adversary: it changes rules, delays licenses, multiplies procedures. Thus, companies learn to survive, not to innovate. For this reason, in Peru the largest firms are also the oldest, and the new ones remain small for years. It is not a sign of stability, but of paralysis. When a country stops renewing its business fabric, it heads towards obsolescence.
The result is clearly seen in the innovative production indicators. Only 5% of our manufacturing exports correspond to high-tech products, while the average of the five main countries in the region is 10.4%. As graph 2 shows, this percentage has been stagnant for a decade, while countries like Chile and Ecuador have managed to increase it steadily. On the other hand, in advanced economies the ratio is 21%, and the global champions are the Philippines (64%) and Malaysia (59%). The gap is abysmal and, most worrying, growing. The production of scientific articles has also increased, but we continue to lag behind our Latin American peers.
These data describe something deeper than a simple lack of investment: they show a structural disconnection between the State, academia and business. Without a Government that designs stable policies, encourages competition and rewards risk, the private sector will not innovate. Without a private sector that invests in knowledge, the State will not be able to generate productivity. Innovation does not arise by decree: it is built in the virtuous interaction between public trust and private audacity. If we do not build a real alliance between the State and business—a society that is committed to science, entrepreneurship and knowledge—the clock of progress will continue ticking.
INNOVATION AND DEVELOPMENT
Among the enabling conditions, our weakest point is business sophistication, where we fall to 120th place. Business spending on research and development (R&D) is tiny: barely 0.05% of GDP, and collaboration between universities and companies is almost non-existent. A country that does not connect knowledge with business or science with the market cannot innovate. Therefore, since the necessary ecosystem that ignites innovation does not exist, it is of little use that our best relative performance is in the human capital pillar (rank 42).
The central problem is that the Peruvian State has not understood that its role is not to make innovation, but to make it possible. In Peru, total spending on R&D is equivalent to barely 0.16% of GDP and most of it comes from the public sector. But, beyond the amount, the true deficit is in the absence of a policy that articulates public efforts with private risk. The regional average is 0.4% and we only surpass Paraguay (0.12%). Meanwhile, the OECD average stands at 3% with leaders such as Israel (6%), South Korea (5.2%) and the United States (3.6%). The difference is not only in the budget, but in the collaboration model: there the State promotes, here the State hinders.
Receive your Perú21 by email or WhatsApp. Subscribe to our enriched digital newspaper. Take advantage of the discounts here.
RECOMMENDED VIDEO
