Canada’s most populous city has been named one of the top 10 most innovative cities in the world, in a global ranking released on Friday.
Toronto placed eighth out of 500 cities for in the 10th annual “Innovation Cities Index” by the Melbourne-based consultancy company 2thinknow.
The cities are scored on 162 indicators that are grouped into three categories: cultural assets (i.e. sports, nature and the arts), human infrastructure (i.e. transportation, start-up companies, education and health) and networked markets (i.e. location, military and access to networked markets). The three categories are used to measure the potential for a city to foster and nurture innovation.
London scored the title of most innovative city in the world for the second year in a row ahead of New York, Tokyo, San Francisco and Boston, which rounded out the top five spots. Los Angeles and Singapore placed just ahead of Toronto with Paris and Vienna ranking just below the Canadian city.
Montreal was the second-highest ranked city in 19th place and Vancouver took the 24th position. The other Canadian cities to break the top 100 were Quebec City at 57th and Calgary in the 83rd spot.
Toronto showed marked improvement from its ranking the year before when it was named the 11th most innovative city in the index, but not as much as Montreal, which jumped an impressive 22 spots from 41st to 19th in just one year. Vancouver also made some strides by climbing from the 35th position to a 24th rank.
The consultancy firm also organized the cities into four different “bands “of innovation. The top band was “Nexus” cities, which comprised the highest-ranked 53 cities on the list, followed by “Hub” cities, then “Node” cities and lastly, “Upstart” cities that are described as having potential for a strong performance with some improvement.
The index described Nexus cities as critical for a “large number of economic and social innovation segments” on an ongoing basis. The Hub classification was given to cities that had “dominance” on key economic and social innovation segments and Node cities were considered to have a “strong performance” across many innovation segments with some imbalances or problems.
According to a refined list of just the Americas, Toronto was ranked the fifth most innovative city after New York, San Francisco, Boston and Los Angeles. Montreal was the eighth-ranked city in the Americas with Vancouver not too far behind in the 12th spot.
The consultancy company explained that the index was designed to help “innovators” determine which cities are the best places for investment in any given year on their website. However, they also stressed the results are relative and some cities are a better fit based on the individual as opposed to the overall rankings.
“While London may be number one, if you were a Spanish innovator, Barcelona may be your best bet. And if you were in Latin America, Buenos Aires or Mexico City remain strong this year. If you spoke Portuguese, you may choose Sao Paulo or Rio,” the company explained in a statement.
Unsurprisingly, the index found that national capitals or primary centres in a country were most likely to harbour the strongest innovation conditions.
Christopher Hire, Executive Director of Data and founder of 2thinknow, credited London’s focus on democracy as a key reason for its repeated number one ranking in an accompanying statement.
“In embracing the results of ‘Brexit’ – showcasing the importance of an orderly acceptance of the results of democratic process, and a new British ‘stiff upper lip’ resilience to unprecedented change,” Hire said.
