Seoul’s global influence has continued to increase for the last four years and it ranked 7th among 35 major cities in the world, achieving high scores in research and development and accessibility, a report showed Friday.

According to the Global Power City Index developed by the Institute of Urban Strategies at the Mori Memorial Foundation, the city’s ranking has gone up by six steps since 2008, outstripping Amsterdam, which ranked 7th last year. New York City topped the list, followed by London, Paris, Tokyo, Singapore and Berlin.

Seoul scored highly in research and development and ranked fifth, and came in eighth for accessibility. The evaluation was conducted by city planning experts including Peter Hall and Saskia Sassen. Its rankings in light of other criteria such as economy, livability, environment and cultural integration went up by two to three notches.

The city has attracted some prominent research centers over the last two years, including the U.S. research center Bell Labs and German electric vehicle research center Fraunhofer Institutes in 2009 and Russia State Optical Institute in 2010.

The airport express also shortened the travel time between airport and city center from more than an hour to about 40 minutes.

By Lee Woo-young (wylee@heraldcorp.com)