Welcome to the 18th edition of WIPO’s flagship Global Innovation Index (GII), which takes the pulse of innovation across 139 countries and the world’s top 100 innovation clusters.
The GII 2025 arrives at a pivotal moment: after a decade of rapid expansion in R&D spending and venture capital investment, we are witnessing a shift. R&D growth has declined to its slowest pace since the global financial crisis and global venture capital deals have not recovered from the severe downturn in 2023.
However, even if innovation investment is in a lull, innovation itself is not. Green supercomputers are setting new efficiency records. Battery prices and genome sequencing costs continue to fall. Adoption of electric vehicles, 5G and robotics are gaining ground, albeit unevenly across regions. And while the full impact of artificial intelligence remains uncertain, its transformative potential is undeniable.
What is particularly encouraging in this year's findings is how innovation momentum is diversifying across regions. The GII 2025 shows strong performances across middle-income economies. China, India, Türkiye and Viet Nam continue to climb in the ranking. Others, including Senegal, Tunisia, Uzbekistan and Rwanda, are emerging as dynamic innovation overperformers. Regions such as Central and Southern Asia and the Middle East are steadily advancing, contributing to a more diverse innovation landscape.
New features of GII 2025 include expanded global coverage, with six more countries: the Republic of the Congo, Guinea, Lesotho, Malawi, Seychelles and Venezuela.
This edition also further improves the GII Innovation Ecosystems & Data Explorer, which aims to empower decision makers by offering in-depth views of their economies’ innovation systems, from persistent strengths to areas of untapped potential.
Another new element is the integration of venture capital activity into the innovation cluster ranking for the first time. The result is a sharper picture of the ecosystems turning scientific discovery into entrepreneurial success – ranging from cities such as Bangalore, Cairo, Mexico City and Paris to multi-city hubs like Silicon Valley and southern China’s Greater Bay Area.
We hope that this GII 2025 serves as a useful resource for governments, industry, researchers and anyone committed to nurturing innovation ecosystems around the world. In a time of economic uncertainty and technological transformation, understanding the dynamics of innovation has never been more important.
Daren Tang
Director General
World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO)