The Global Innovation Index 2026 was prepared under the general direction of Daren Tang, Director General, in WIPO’s IP and Innovation Ecosystems Sector led by Marco Alemán, Assistant Director General, and in the Department of Economics and Data Analytics led by Carsten Fink, Chief Economist.
The GII is managed by Sacha Wunsch-Vincent, Head of Section, and produced by the GII team, comprising Lorena Rivera León, Senior Economist; Jeff Slee, Data Scientist; Shengyu Qin, Project Manager; as well as Davide Bonaglia, Oriol Gisbert-Martí, Anmol Grewal, Florencia Jaccoud and Zihang Wang (GII Fellows), Roger Alfredo Zamora Matute, as well as former GII project managers Mariia Shcherbakova and Mario Canales.
For the GII 2026 Special theme and the production of the Dealroom–WIPO Deep Science Start-up Tracker – the first global mapping of deep science startups – we thank Dealroom, and in particular Lorenzo Chiavarini, Boris Bavinck and Felix Ullmer Key, and for the spinout review, Cristiana Sengo and Daria Drabik. For the IP data work and the SPARK: Patenting in Deep Science Startups and Spinouts (Global Innovation Index 2026 Special), November 2026, we thank Christopher Harrison and Hong Kan, from the IP Analytics Section (WIPO). For the two background studies we thank Gaétan de Rassenfosse (EPFL) and Kritika Saxena (University of Groningen).
We are grateful to the following individuals and institutions for providing external chapter contributions on the 2026 theme “Powering entrepreneurs at the frontier of science” and our external data collaborators, without whom the Index would not be what it is.
We thank the authors of the thematic contributions to the GII:
CERN: (European Organization for Nuclear Research) Linn Kretzschmar, Han Hubert Dols and Giovanni Anelli
CNI (Brazil): Lygia V. Pereira and João Antônio Lopes Filho
Contemporary Amperex Technology Co., Limited (CATL, China): Xiaonan Luo, Yi Xu and Shaoteng Ren
Emerge (Brazil): Lucas Delgado and Daniel Pimentel
Georgia Institute of Technology (US): Ángel Cabrera and Raghupathy Sivakumar
King Saud University (Saudi Arabia): Khalid Alhussaini
Ministry of Investment (Saudi Arabia): Afnan A. Ababtain
Myelin Foundry (India): Gopichand Katragadda
National Research Foundation, Prime Minister’s Office (Singapore): Tan Chorh Chuan
Research, Development and Innovation Authority (Saudi Arbia): Mohammed R. AlShareef
Spirit AI (China): Fengtao Han, Leo Guo and Doris Guo
The following WIPO colleagues provided substantive inputs to GII elaboration, administrative coordination, or dissemination: Kyle Bergquist, Bruno Le Feuvre, Mosahid Khan, Ryan Lamb, from the Statistics and Data Analytics Division, DEDA; Samiah Do Carmo Figueiredo, Eloise Osinga, Mary Osuchukwu and Cynthia Poullain (Administrative Assistants); as well as colleagues from the External Relations Division, the Digital Engagement Service, the IP and Innovation Ecosystems Sector, the Language Division, the News and Media Division, the Printing Plant, the Regional and National Development Sector, the WIPO Office in New York, and WIPO’s External Offices.
We also thank the Portulans Institute, the GII Advisory Committee, the GII Industry Association Network, and the GII Data Collaborators for their contributions, as well as the Competence Centre on Composite Indicators and Scoreboards (COIN) team from the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, led by Michaela Saisana, which conducted the statistical audit. The report was edited by Richard Cook, Andy Platts and James Cooke at Book Now Ltd., and the report was managed, designed and typeset by the WIPO publishing team. The GII interactive data website was developed by Pere Rovira, Samantha Pinos and Noël Garcia at One Tandem.
We thank our external data collaborators:
Africa: The Big Deal: Max Cuvellier Giacomelli
BloombergNEF: Evelina Stoikou
Brand Finance: Areeb Arshad, Annie Brown, Artur Bryzghalov, Annabella Garnham, David Haigh and Thulith Perera
CB Insights: Tom Landers and Jason Saltzman
Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS), Leiden University: Alfredo Yegros
Clarivate Analytics: Joseph Brightbill and Uwe Wendland
data.ai (a Sensor Tower Company): Donny Kristianto and Nan Lu
Division for Public Institutions and Digital Government (DPIDG) of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA)
European Commission Joint Research Centre: Jaime Lagüera González, Alberto Guidi, Petra Krylova, Panagiotis Ravanos, Michaela Saisana, Elisabeth Nindl, Hugo Confraria and Oscar Smallenbroek
GitHub: Mike Linksvayer and Kevin Xu
Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM): Niels Bosma, Alicia Coduras, Mahsa Samsami and Aileen Ionescu-Somers
Growth Lab at Harvard University: Sebastian Bustos, Timothy Paul Cheston and Annie White
International Accreditation Forum (IAF): Nigel Johnston
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA): Mauro Carrara and Egor Titovich
International Energy Agency (IEA): Zuzana Dobrotkova, Luca Lorenzoni, Oya Zaimoglu
International Federation of Robotics (IFR): Susanne Bieller, Nina Kutzbach and Christopher Müller
International Labour Organization (ILO): Horacio Barría, David Bescond and Yves Perardel
International Monetary Fund (IMF)
International Organization for Standardization (ISO): Laurent Charlet and Cristina Draghici
International Telecommunication Union (ITU): Nehal Desai, Thierry Geiger, Esperanza Magpantay, Nathan Menthon, Martin Schaaper and Daniel Vertesy
International Union of Railways (UIC): Michele Gesualdi and Bertrand Minary
IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science: Murray Aitken, Roland Alexander and Michael Kleinrock
Moody’s Analytics: Renato Ferrigno, Kirill Katschura, Santhosh Metri, Petra Steiner and Sasha Uvarova
NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (NASA GISS): Reto A. Ruedy
National Institutes of Health: Kris Wetterstrand
Omdia: David Hancock
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD): Fernando Galindo-Rueda, Corinne Heckmann, Miyako Ikeda, Guillaume Kpodar, Daniel Sanchez-Serra and Fabien Verger
PitchBook Data, Inc.: Charlie Farber, Sydney Glander, Nalin Patel and Alexandra Watson
PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC): Kamlesh Balasubramanian and Shreeta Sen
QS Quacquarelli Symonds Ltd: Samuel Wong
Red de Indicadores de Ciencia y Tecnología (RICYT): Rodolfo Barrere and Laura Trama
S&P Global Market Intelligence: Mohsen Bonakdarpour, Steve Brown and Karen Campbell
SCImago: Félix de Moya Anegón
The Conference Board: Erik Lundh and Dana Peterson
Times Higher Education: Phil Baty, Emma Deraze, Elizabeth Shepherd and Emma Wilkin
Trade Data Monitor LLC: C. Donald Brasher Jr., John Miller, Maria Vretenicic and Altan Yurdakul
TU Wien: Karl Rupp
UNESCO Institute for Statistics (UIS): Ghania Djafri, Adolfo Gustavo Imhof, Olivier Labé, Weixin Lu, Oscar Milafu Onam, Rohan Pathirage, José Pessoa and Yanhong Zhang
United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population Division: Patrick Gerland
United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO): Fernando Cantú Bazaldua
United Nations Public Administration Network (UNPAN)
World Bank: Parul Agarwal, Jean-François Arvis, Sëbastien C. Dessus, Tony Fujs, Aart Kraay, Hiroko Maeda, Denis Medvedev, Eric Roland Metreau, Florina Pirlea, Rubena Sukaj, Daria Ulybina and Christina Wiederer
World Economic Forum: Ricky Li
World Federation of Exchanges: Mihaela Croitoru
World Health Organization (WHO): Richard Johnston
World Trade Organization (WTO): Barbara Carmelina D’Andrea Adrian, Shradha Bhatia, Florian Eberth, Monia Snoussi-Mimouni and Janvier Usanase
ZookNIC Inc: Matthew Zook