Singapore ranked as third most innovative city in world

JLL’s research report, ‘Innovation Geographies Research’ showed that Singapore was ranked third most innovative city in world, only behind San Francisco and Tokyo.

Over the past few years ‘innovation’ has become a buzzword for city success, and the real estate industry is catching on, said JLL. Major corporations have long targeted talent-rich innovation hubs, but the ‘war for talent’ is now intensifying their focus on talent hotspots, it added.

JLL research noted that meanwhile, several large investment managers have started to explicitly target cities which are perceived to have a strong innovation system. It asked, “but why is this the case? Is it justified and what are the implications for the real estate industry?”

Innovation ecosystems within cities are key to driving productivity and in turn lead to economic growth and, by implication, to demand for real estate, particularly when combined with a high concentration of human capital. This relationship has been endorsed by a wide array of organisations including the ECB and the World Bank. JLL puts this theory to the test from a real estate perspective.

It explored over 100 cities worldwide to quantify their Innovation and Talent attributes. JLL’s research confirms that cities which combine strong innovation capabilities and talent concentrations have outperformed in economic terms over the last couple of decades, but more interestingly it also reveals a robust link between innovation and talent-rich cities and real estate performance.

“Put simply, the top performing cities in JLL’s Innovation and Talent Concentration indices have recorded the fastest, most vigorous office rental growth over the past decade and are attracting a higher proportion of real estate capital.

“There are now clearly compelling reasons for real estate professionals to include Innovation and Talent metrics when assessing a city’s real estate potential, combining them with the traditional measures of city economy and real estate dynamism relating to GDP, employment and population.”

JLL believes Singapore can remain a leading innovative city and stay ahead of competition by continuously nurturing its culture of innovation and entrepreneurship.

Singapore remaining a innovative city would ensure continued acquisition of global talent as well as continue to attract real estate investment, the research said.

Chris Fossick, JLL chief executive officer for Singapore and South-east Asia, said: “the top nine global cities for innovation and talent concentration pulled in a third of all global real estate investment in the last 10 years. In Asia-Pacific, just seven cities accounted for over half of real estate investment volumes in the last decade.”

San Francisco, with its world-leading start-up scene, heads JLL’s global Innovation ranking. Yet the top innovative city rankings are not all dominated by U.S. cities, but rather evenly spread across the three main global regions, with Asia Pacific cities having a stronger presence in these rankings than they would have had even a few years ago. Tokyo and Singapore, both well-established world cities, are joined by Beijing and Seoul in the global top 10.

Beijing now has a deep-rooted innovation ecosystem – it has nurtured the most unicorns outside of Silicon Valley and is the third largest destination for venture capital funding. As well as Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen have achieved global top 20 status, highlighting the ascendency of China’s major cities as hubs of innovation.

JLL’s latest research on Innovation Geographies highlights that the innovation economy has become truly global and impacts on cities regardless of size, maturity or location. The well-established Global Leaders such as San Francisco, London and Tokyo continue to dominate the global innovation ecosystem, but competition is increasing, particularly from several smaller, more agile cities, from Austin to Amsterdam to Melbourne; cities that are building impressive globally-competitive innovation ecosystems supported by exceptional talent pools.

But the biggest changes in the geography of innovation may still be to come. Our research reveals that China’s Tier 1 cities – Beijing, Shanghai and Shenzhen – now feature prominently among the top rankings for Innovation. These, and other Chinese cities, are becoming hotbeds for innovation, and we expect to see more Chinese cities in the global top 20 as they build sophisticated innovation ecosystems.

Likewise, several Indian cities, like Bengaluru and Hyderabad, are moving up the value-chain and could well be future contenders for top positions provided they can meet their social and environmental challenges, the report said.

Fossick said that as Singapore goes all out to woo investors in its quest to be an innovative city, “it is in a strong position to maintain its competitiveness as a global knowledge hub and ensure its continued attraction for multinational companies and businesses”.

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