THE Philippines placed 50th out of 139 economies in the 2025 Global Innovation Index.
This is three places higher than its 53rd place in 2024, and is the same rank it achieved in 2020.
The Global Innovation Index is published by the World Intellectual Property Office. In the 2025 index, the Philippines placed 49th in innovation outputs and 59th in innovation inputs. This means the country is effectively translating costly innovation investments into more and higher-quality outputs.
The index noted, in particular, that the Philippines is No. 1 worldwide in terms of high-tech exports as a share of total trade, and fourth in high-tech imports as a share of total trade.
The Philippines also ranked 38th in terms of the knowledge and technology outputs pillar, which considers the number of patent applications in a country, the number of scientific and technical articles published by its citizens, and economic growth per person employed.
It also ranked 40th in business sophistication, which computes, among others, the number of Filipinos employed in knowledge-intensive services and employed women with advanced degrees.
The country, however, placed 65th in terms of infrastructure, which calculates electricity output, logistics performance, and gross capital formation.
The Philippines also placed 90th in terms of human development, which computes the teacher-student ratio, school enrollment, PISA scores, and QS World University Rankings.
In a statement, Department of Economy, Planning, and Development (DEPDev) Secretary and National Innovation Council Vice Chair Arsenio Balisacan said this year’s ranking is a result of sustained reforms, targeted investments, and strong collaboration among leaders in the innovation space.
“We remain committed to scaling our innovation capacity, bridging critical gaps in research and digital infrastructure, and ensuring that innovation drives inclusive and sustainable development,â Balisacan said. (ABS-CBN News)
