Pakistan climbs four places to 95th in the Global Innovation Index, helped by apps and software exports
WIPO's 2026 ranking has Pakistan stronger on results than on effort: 72nd on innovation outputs, 121st on inputs, with education spending and institutions near the bottom.
Pakistan ranks 95th among 139 economies in the Global Innovation Index 2026, up four places from 99th a year ago, according to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). The index scores economies on roughly 80 indicators, split between innovation inputs such as education and research spending and innovation outputs such as patents, software and creative goods.
The gain only partly makes up ground lost since 2022, when Pakistan ranked 87th. It then slipped to 88th, 91st and 99th, having stood at 107th in 2020. WIPO puts the statistical confidence interval for Pakistan's 2026 rank between 85 and 100.
Outputs ahead of inputs
Pakistan is stronger on results than on effort. It ranks 72nd on innovation outputs, up from 75th last year, and 121st on innovation inputs, up from 124th. WIPO says the country performs above expectations for its level of development and produces more outputs than its level of investment would predict. Among 36 lower middle income economies it is 15th, and it is eighth of 11 in Central and Southern Asia.
The digital economy carries the score. Pakistan's best ranked indicator is mobile app creation relative to economic output, at 10th in the world. ICT services exports as a share of total trade rank 15th, high tech imports as a share of trade 19th and software spending as a share of GDP 33rd. The average score of its top three universities in the QS rankings puts it 47th.
By pillar, Pakistan ranks highest in knowledge and technology outputs (71st), creative outputs (76th) and business sophistication (83rd). On those three it scores above the lower middle income average, for example 21.74 against 16.59 on knowledge and technology outputs and 20.64 against 16.00 on creative outputs. Mobile apps account for part of that: WIPO counts 4.36 billion global downloads of Pakistan made apps in 2025, up 14.74 percent on the year before. High tech exports were $590.55 million in 2024, up 29.31 percent.
Where the ranking drags
Institutions rank 126th and human capital and research 119th. On institutions Pakistan scores 25.82 against 39.43 for the lower middle income group. Spending on education was 1.95 percent of GDP in 2023, which ranks 128th, and research and development took 0.16 percent of GDP, ranking 93rd. The country counted 473.72 researchers per million people in 2023, up 18.02 percent on the year before.
For startups, the venture capital line is the one to read. Pakistan ranks 106th on venture capital deal counts relative to economic size, and WIPO's innovation tracker shows deal numbers falling 6.7 percent between 2024 and 2025. Over the same period international patent filings rose 50 percent and scientific publications 4.2 percent.
At the top of the table, Switzerland is first for a 16th straight year, followed by Sweden and the United States. WIPO's message this year is that innovation does not follow a straight line from income to results, and that economies like Pakistan can improve by building on the strengths they already have.
WIPO's profile lists no Pakistani cluster among the world's top 100 innovation clusters and no unicorn in 2026.
