Emer­son John-Charles

The Glob­al In­no­va­tion In­dex (GII) 2025 has been re­leased, and T&T has once again per­formed poor­ly, hit­ting a his­toric low of 114th, a steep fall from our peak of 68th in 2008. Even more alarm­ing, we are ranked last among high in­come coun­tries, and with­in Latin Amer­i­ca and the Caribbean, we placed 17th out of 21 na­tions

Some may ar­gue that the GII can be ig­nored, not­ing that it does not ful­ly cap­ture our in­no­va­tion po­ten­tial and that weak da­ta col­lec­tion skews the re­sults. While da­ta gaps do ex­ist, dis­miss­ing the GII is both short sight­ed and dan­ger­ous. Glob­al in­dices shape in­vest­ment flows, in­ter­na­tion­al part­ner­ships and glob­al per­cep­tion.

More­over, oth­er au­thor­i­ta­tive bench­marks such as the UN’s Fron­tier Tech­nol­o­gy Readi­ness In­dex and Har­vard’s At­las of Eco­nom­ic Com­plex­i­ty echo the same con­cerns, con­sis­tent­ly paint­ing T&T as a weak per­former in sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy and in­no­va­tion. Com­pound­ing this, we are ab­sent from the Glob­al Start­up Ecosys­tem Re­port. Dis­count­ing these sig­nals does not erase the prob­lem; it on­ly fur­ther erodes our cred­i­bil­i­ty and weak­ens our in­flu­ence on the world stage.

Be­yond da­ta: Strength­en­ing re­al in­no­va­tion

Yes, we strug­gle with da­ta. In­no­va­tion ac­tiv­i­ty is in­con­sis­tent­ly record­ed and rarely used in de­ci­sion-mak­ing. How­ev­er, poor mea­sure­ment is not the whole sto­ry. The GII tracks re­al per­for­mance: re­search in­ten­si­ty, high-tech ex­ports, dig­i­tal in­fra­struc­ture, knowl­edge cre­ation, and in­no­va­tion link­ages. With­out strong sys­tems in these ar­eas, bet­ter da­ta alone will not im­prove rank­ings.

The GII is a guide, not a ver­dict. It high­lights gaps in knowl­edge flows, com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion and in­no­va­tion out­put. Take Bar­ba­dos as an ex­am­ple: its in­no­va­tion da­ta was so weak that the coun­try was ex­clud­ed from the GII for eight years. Prime Min­is­ter Mia Mot­t­ley gave a clear man­date to change that. The gov­ern­ment mo­bilised lo­cal and in­ter­na­tion­al stake­hold­ers, im­proved the in­no­va­tion ecosys­tem, and by 2024 had be­come the Caribbean’s most in­no­v­a­tive na­tion. Af­ter all, what gets mea­sured, gets man­aged, and what gets man­aged, gets im­proved. They used the in­dex as a com­pass to dri­ve ac­tion, not as a mea­sure of fail­ure.

Though some will state that we sure­ly must be su­pe­ri­or to Bar­ba­dos, they can on­ly point to anec­do­tal ev­i­dence to jus­ti­fy their po­si­tion. Bar­ba­dos, on the oth­er hand, un­der­stands that rank­ings mat­ter be­cause oth­ers no­tice. In­vestors, de­vel­op­ment agen­cies, and in­ter­na­tion­al part­ners use them to de­cide where to al­lo­cate re­sources. Low ranks sig­nal un­readi­ness, cre­at­ing missed op­por­tu­ni­ties, weak­er ne­go­ti­at­ing pow­er and re­duced ac­cess to fund­ing. Even the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of Com­merce rec­og­nizes this in their re­cent 2026 Bud­get Rec­om­men­da­tions Re­port. They rec­om­mend that we place ded­i­cat­ed Sci­ence, Tech­nol­o­gy, and In­no­va­tion of­fi­cers at for­eign mis­sions to ad­dress our in­ter­na­tion­al in­no­va­tion rep­u­ta­tion. These ef­forts will on­ly suc­ceed with cred­i­ble da­ta and strong in­no­va­tion sys­tems.

Turn­ing weak­ness in­to op­por­tu­ni­ty

The good news: fix­ing our da­ta sys­tems is a quick win. Many ven­tures, cul­tur­al in­no­va­tions, and grass­roots ini­tia­tives re­main in­vis­i­ble be­cause they are not sys­tem­at­i­cal­ly cap­tured. Record­ing them will im­prove rank­ings and pro­vide a foun­da­tion for pol­i­cy, plan­ning, and growth.

Bet­ter da­ta is al­so crit­i­cal for the fu­ture. Ar­ti­fi­cial in­tel­li­gence and ad­vanced tech­nolo­gies re­ly on high-qual­i­ty da­ta. Frag­ment­ed or ab­sent in­for­ma­tion leaves us be­hind; strong gov­er­nance al­lows AI to boost pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and ac­cel­er­ate in­no­va­tion.

The GII high­lights that we are in­ef­fi­cient at trans­form­ing in­no­va­tion in­puts in­to out­puts. In oth­er words, we strug­gle to com­mer­cialise our ideas. For­tu­nate­ly, T&Thas re­cent­ly adopt­ed ISO 56001, the new in­ter­na­tion­al stan­dard for in­no­va­tion man­age­ment sys­tems, as its na­tion­al in­no­va­tion stan­dard. This stan­dard is in­valu­able as it pro­vides a struc­tured frame­work to trans­late mea­sure­ment in­to mean­ing­ful ac­tion.

When paired with a re­vised and up­dat­ed Na­tion­al In­no­va­tion Pol­i­cy, the in­no­va­tion stan­dard can fos­ter an ecosys­tem where ev­i­dence dri­ves re­form and in­ter­na­tion­al part­ner­ships thrive. The cur­rent po­lit­i­cal ad­min­is­tra­tion had pre­vi­ous­ly ap­proved a Na­tion­al In­no­va­tion Pol­i­cy 2015-2025 (Cab­i­net Minute No. 1513, June 25, 2015) as the over­ar­ch­ing frame­work for the coun­try’s na­tion­al in­no­va­tion sys­tem. It is hoped that this fo­cus will be re­newed, al­low­ing the pol­i­cy to guide T&T in­to an era of in­no­va­tion-dri­ven growth.

The Glob­al In­no­va­tion In­dex should not de­mor­alise us; it should mo­bilise us. By mov­ing from crit­ics to cham­pi­ons of in­no­va­tion, we can re­shape our glob­al nar­ra­tive. While glob­al in­dices may nev­er cap­ture every strength we pos­sess, they con­tin­ue to in­flu­ence how the world per­ceives us. The choice is ours: ei­ther let oth­ers de­fine our in­no­va­tion fu­ture, or take de­lib­er­ate steps to de­fine it our­selves.