Canberra ranks in the top five most innovative cities in the world for the second year in a row, according to UK card payments provider Paymentsense’s annual ‘innovation index’ report.

The study found Australia’s national capital to have a 77/100 global innovation index, which saw it fall to fourth place from last year’s third.

Canberra follows Washington DC, which scored 82/100, Berlin, and Paris, and ranks just above Beijing in fifth place with an index of 76/100.

According to the new report, “Everyone wants to be the first to come up with the best new ‘thing’,” leading to innovation around the world.

Innovation in “Making changes to established systems in business, lifestyle, finance, and everything else we experience in cities,” is essential for economic growth and maintaining the population of cities.

Paymentsense measures its global innovation index using the number of Google patent applications, new business registrations, Round University Rankings (RUR), average monthly search volume for ‘how to start a business,’ and the number of kickstarters (ideas).

In 2022, Canberra had a massive 2,100,535 new Google patent applications, with 12,620 new kickstarters.

In the past, Australian innovators have made substantial contributions to medicine.

While around 9,900 Canberrans a month searched ‘how to start a business,’ with the average search trend down 18 per cent, the city had 236,447 new business applications, up 793 from the previous year.

The company gathers data from multiple sources to evenly weigh and rank UK and Global cities in order of innovation.

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