Asia-Pacific cities show an increased presence in the world’s most innovative city rankings, compared to a few years ago, highlights JLL in the report, “Innovation Geographies 2019”.

Singapore has emerged as the third most innovative city after San Francisco and Tokyo.

Beijing ranks as the fourth most innovative city – it has nurtured the most number of “unicorns” outside of Silicon Valley in San Francisco, and is now the third largest destination for venture capital funding, according to the report.

Also in the top 20 were two other Chinese cities – Shanghai (11) and Shenzhen (14). Seoul ranks at 10th place.

As the second most innovative city, Tokyo has generated the largest number of patents compared to other cities, outstripping second-placed Shenzhen by over 80%, the report finds. Tokyo leads the market in diverse tech, from electrical machinery to nanotechnology. It is also home to tech multinationals such as Sony, SoftBank and Toyota, which encourages substantial levels of foreign direct investment and R&D expenditure.

The report is based on a range of innovation and talent metrics, tracking over 100 cities globally. Sectors such as life sciences, high value-add manufacturing, scientific R&D and technology have been considered. This includes foreign direct investment levels in said innovative industries, venture capital attraction, R&D expenditure and number of international patent applications. The talent metrics look at the quality of talent, as opposed to the sheer size of the labour pool. Factors such as the quality of the local higher education institutions, the demographic profile and employment levels in the innovative industries have been taken into account.