Dubai: The UAE has reached a major milestone in global innovation, climbing five places to rank 25th worldwide in the 2026 Global Innovation Index (GII) published by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), up from 30th place in 2025.

The achievement marks the first time the UAE has entered the world's top 25 economies for innovation, reinforcing its position as a leading global innovation hub.

The report ranked the UAE first globally in four key indicators: entrepreneurial policies and culture, attracting international students, funding start-ups and scale-ups, and new investments in research and development and advanced technologies.

The 2026 Global Innovation Index assessed the innovation performance of 139 economies, with this year's edition focusing on empowering entrepreneurship in advanced science and technology and transforming scientific discoveries into scalable projects with broad economic impact. Special emphasis was placed on sectors such as artificial intelligence, biotechnology, advanced materials, semiconductors and clean energy.

His Excellency Abdullah bin Touq Al Marri, Minister of Economy and Tourism, said the achievement reflects the UAE's success in building a supportive environment for innovation and entrepreneurship based on international best practices.

“Today, the UAE is witnessing a new achievement added to the national innovation and creativity ecosystem, advancing five places in the Global Innovation Index 2026 to reach 25th place globally. This reflects the institutional, human and technological strengths that support the country’s ability to continue investing in knowledge and technology,” he said.

He added that the progress confirms the success of the UAE’s vision of transforming investments and innovative capabilities into tangible economic and knowledge-based outcomes, while supporting the goals of UAE Vision 2031.

Strong performance in creative and technology outputs

The UAE also achieved high rankings across a number of creative and technological indicators, including:

6th globally in brand value among the world's top 5,000 brands.

7th globally in mobile application development.

9th globally in exports of creative goods.

13th globally in high-tech exports.

19th globally in intellectual property revenues as a percentage of total trade.

According to the report, UAE brands among the world's top 5,000 brands reached a combined value of approximately $101.66 billion in 2026, representing a 15% increase compared with 2025.

Applications developed by UAE-based companies and developers recorded approximately 2.91 billion global downloads in 2025, up 9.81% year-on-year.

Meanwhile, the value of the country's high-tech exports reached approximately $68.05 billion in 2024, an increase of 36.35% compared with 2023.

Among global leaders

The UAE ranked among the world's top eight economies in six sub-pillars of the index:

1st in higher education.

2nd in business environment.

5th in public infrastructure.

5th in knowledge absorption.

7th in information and communication technology.

8th in credit.

The country also improved its position in both innovation inputs and outputs, advancing to 12th globally in the Innovation Inputs Index from 14th in 2025, while also climbing five places in the Innovation Outputs Index.

Across the GII's seven core pillars, the UAE ranked:

9th in institutions.

13th in human capital and research.

13th in infrastructure.

14th in market sophistication.

25th in business sophistication.

47th in knowledge and technology outputs.

36th in creative outputs.

The report found that the UAE outperformed the average of high-income economies in five pillars: institutions, human capital and research, infrastructure, market sophistication and business sophistication. It also exceeded the regional average across all seven pillars.

Published annually by WIPO, the Global Innovation Index measures the innovation performance of economies through a broad set of indicators covering both innovation inputs and outputs across institutions, research, infrastructure, markets, business sophistication, knowledge, technology and creative outputs.