Authors
Mike Wardle, Professor Michael Mainelli
Published by
Long Finance & Distributed Futures (June 2021), 45 pages.
Share on social media:
The third edition of the Smart Centres Index (SCI 3) was published on 16 June 2021. SCI 3 rates the innovation and technology offerings of leading commercial and financial centres across the world.
The SCI focuses on centres in relation to their approach to and delivery of innovation and technology, including Science, Energy Systems, Machine Learning, Distributed Ledgers, and Fintech, along with other applications. We look at cities rather than countries in developing the index as we consider that it is in cities and other commercial clusters that the development of business is driven forward.
The Smart Centres Index is based on evaluations of three dimensions:
131 commercial and financial centres were researched for SCI 3 of which 51 are included in the index. SCI 3 was compiled using 127 instrumental factors. These quantitative measures are provided by third parties including the World Bank, The Economist Intelligence Unit, the OECD, and the United Nations.
The instrumental factors are combined with financial centre assessments provided by respondents to the GFCI online questionnaire. SCI 3 uses 1,971 assessments from 280 respondents.
SCI 3 Results
North America
Asia/Pacific
Western Europe
Middle East & Africa
Eastern Europe & Central Asia
Latin America & The Caribbean
Commentary
The Smart Centres Index focuses on financial and commercial centres across the world in relation to their approach to and delivery of innovation and technology, including Science, Energy Systems, Machine Learning, Distributed Ledgers, and Fintech, along with other applications.
The SCI takes into account the three dimensions of Innovation Support, Creative Intensity and Delivery Capability. In broad terms, centres in North America and Western Europe score well for innovation Support and Delivery Capability but vary in terms of their Creative Intensity. Centres in China in particular score lower for Innovation Support.
Leading centres in the SCI are based in places which combine a high performing university sector across STEM subjects, with well-developed regulatory, commercial and financial services.