The WIPO publishes the GII of countries every year, according to which Iran’s ranking was higher than Brazil, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and Qatar by four levels.

According to the public relations and information center of the Vice-Presidency for science and technology affairs, the WIPO publishes the GII of member countries every year with the membership of more than 190 countries such as Iran. Given the importance of the GII in the advancement of nations, there is intense competition among member states to gain a higher quality rating by upgrading the software and hardware infrastructure in the annual index.

According to high-ranking documents, such as the one adopted by the supreme council of the Cultural Revolution council, the Vice-Presidency has the difficult responsibility of coordinating different government organizations and activists and companies in the field. Of course, it is one of the examples of Iran"s hard work to move along the path of innovation (despite all the difficulties). Since 2011, Iran joint the countries assessed by WIPO and received the 61 ranking of innovative countries in the world and second ranking in the central and south Asia in the latest report of the organization (GII 2019). In 2018, Iran experienced a 10-step improvement from 75 in 2017 to 65.

The Third Country of the World in the Science and Engineering Index

Iran was able to receive a total score of 34.43 and was placed above countries such as Brazil, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, and Qatar. In this report, different input indicators such as institutions, infrastructure, human capital and research, market complexity and business complexity are considered as criteria. Evaluation of these baseline indicators shows that Iran has a very good situation in terms of human capital and research. In this index, Iran received the score of 37.6 and was ranked 45 in the world with a two-level improvement, compared to last year. One notable point is the highly satisfactory status of higher education in Iran as a subset of human capital and research. In this index, Iran was ranked second with the score of 62.6. In addition, Iran was ranked third in the world in the number of graduates of science and engineering with a score of 43.9.

Among the output indices, including "knowledge and technology output" and "creative outputs", Iran"s score is 27.2 and 32.5, respectively, which has led to earning 46 and 45 rankings in the world, respectively.

Over the last few years, Iran has experienced a big improvement in these two indexes, in ways that its ranking improved from 90 and 116 in 2015 to its current rankings. It is worth mentioning that the support of innovation ecosystems and knowledge-based companies plays an important role in improvement of Iran’s rankings in the annual innovation index.