Which Countries Are Most Creative?

According to the Global Creativity Index, the 3Ts of economic and social progress are talent, technology, and tolerance. Which countries rank the highest on those combined measures?

Watercolor world map, old paper background

There are a lot of different yardsticks one could use to gauge economic prosperity and social growth. The Global Creativity Index (GCI) uses three: talent, technology, and tolerance.

The index, published by the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, is devised by Richard Florida, who serves as the director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at Rotman. Those three attributes, Florida has argued, are key to driving innovation and economic prosperity in the post-industrial world. “In the new knowledge economy, creativity is closely linked with economic and social progress,” according to a report released with the 2015 GCI. “Countries that rank high on the GCI are more likely to have high levels of economic output, competitiveness, entrepreneurship, and overall human development.”

Talent, technology, and tolerance also make good metrics for evaluating meeting destinations, since all three can contribute to a meeting’s success. Talent and technology are no-brainers — a vibrant and intellectually innovative destination can yield both inspiration and ideas (and speakers), while a robust technological infrastructure supports today’s wired meetings.

Tolerance is less obvious, but equally important. Places that are open to diverse people are not only generally receptive to new ideas, as Florida points out, but are destinations where a broad range of attendees will feel welcomed. (Look for our cover story next month about how issues like same-sex marriage and racial equality are affecting decisions about where meetings should take place and how the industry is responding.)

Here are GCI’s top-ranked countries for 2015:

  1. Australia
  2. United States
  3. New Zealand
  4. Canada
  5. Denmark
  6. Finland
  7. Sweden
  8. Iceland
  9. Singapore
  10. Netherlands

full list of 139 countries and analysis is available at the Martin Prosperity Institute website.

Barbara Palmer

Barbara Palmer is senior editor and director of digital content.