The Martin Prosperity Institute (MPI), part of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, annually publishes Global Creativity Indexes to assess each country's intellectual capital, which it says is closely linked to economic and social development.

The higher a country ranks on the index, the higher its level of productivity, competitiveness, business success, and social development.

Slovenia's technological ranking has steadily advanced in the past four years, due to an increase in technological investments. This year, it improved to 17th place, as opposed to 23rd place from 2011. The MPI measures a country's technological ranking based on the number of applied patents per capita.

In terms of talent, Slovenia came in 8th, but its rankings were quite lower on the index measuring tolerance, where it scored 35th. A country's talent ranking is measured by assessing its share of the workforce in the creative sector and its share of adults with higher education.

The tolerance criterion is measured by a country's share of people who say their town is a good place for ethnic and racial minorities as well as for gay and lesbian people. MPI researchers maintain that openness to diversity encourages economic development.

"Places that are open to new ideas attract more creative people from all over the globe, who encourage innovation and launch start-up businesses to spur new industries," they argue.

All Slovenia's neighbours ranked lower on the Global Creativity Index, yet Austria ranked higher in the fields of talent and tolerance. Croatia took 58th place, the lowest among Slovenia's neighbouring countries.

The highest ranking on the Global Creativity Index was taken by Australia, followed by the US, New Zealand, and Canada.