GII Economy Profiles

Objective

To insource and automatize the production of annual economy profiles for the Global Innovation Index (GII).¹

See related workshop here.

Description

One of the main components of the GII report is the economy profiles. The profiles provide an overview of each economy’s performance within the GII for the specific report year. They summarize model output, highlight outdated and missing data, and identify indicator strengths and weaknesses. The profiles for the GII 2022 can be seen here.

Previously, the briefs were outsourced to design firms. This process was typically resource-intensive, inflexible and error-prone. Starting with the GII 2021, I insourced the production of the profiles by developing a bespoke workflow populating Adobe InDesign files using R and the GIIDB. This involved the development of a set of XML population functions and an idml template for typesetting within Adobe InDesign. As far as I am aware, this is the first attempt to automate the population of an idml file using R.

This novel, in-house process represented a giant leap forward as it replaced external providers, streamlined our dissemination process, and enhanced our internal capabilities, all in a cost-effective manner.