Ireland among top 20 global innovators
Ireland has further cemented its status as one of Europe’s leading innovation economies, rising one position to 18th in the World Intellectual Property Organization’s (WIPO) Global Innovation Index 2025 and remaining firmly within the global top 20.
One of the most significant findings is Ireland’s exceptional performance in digital and intellectual-property-intensive sectors. The State ranks first globally in ICT services exports and first in intellectual property (IP) payments. These indicators reflect the deep integration of Ireland’s economy into global value chains, which is underpinned by the State playing host to multinational corporations.
Ireland also ranks second in intangible asset intensity and third in software spending. The report also outlines how Dublin has emerged as a top 100 global innovation cluster for the first time.
Ireland’s strong standing within Europe is further highlighted in the regional analysis. The continent continues to dominate the upper tiers of the index, and Ireland is one of 13 European economies to improve its ranking through the year. Across the continent, Ireland ranks in a similar standing to well-established innovation leaders Denmark, Estonia, and Norway.
However, the GII also offers a more nuanced picture of Ireland’s innovation ecosystem. While the State achieves a solid overall performance score of 0.83 under the index’s data-envelopment analysis (DEA) efficiency model, the report reveals that Ireland relies heavily on its strengths in business sophistication, which accounts for 20 per cent of its DEA score, as well as a moderate contribution from knowledge and technology outputs (10 per cent).
Additionally, while Ireland continues to score strongly on inputs related to digital infrastructure, human capital, and business sophistication, the report points to untapped potential in transforming these inputs into broader innovation outputs. The national innovation model remains disproportionately reliant on foreign-owned corporations, and there are gaps abound around scaling indigenous research, commercialisation capacity, and domestic R&D intensity.
However, overall, the report’s finding are positive for Ireland. Its performance aligns with a Europe that remains the most innovative region globally, and its ongoing upward momentum signals resilience at a time when global R&D growth and venture capital activity are slowing.
The rise in ranking along with Dublin’s entry into the world’s top innovation clusters, suggests that the State’s strategic focus on advanced digital sectors, higher-value exports, and strong research-industry linkages is paying dividends.
