India’s performance in WIPO’s Global Innovation Index 2025 Hides More Than it Reveals
Which Metrics Really Matter
Authors
India’s rise to the 38th spot in the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Global Innovation Index 2025 (GII) is often looked at as a sign of India’s growing innovation achievements, especially with its top global ranking in ICT services exports, impressive late-stage venture capital activity, and strong intangible asset performance. However, this hides structural weaknesses and failures of India’s innovation ecosystem. India’s innovation ecosystem continues to struggle with a disconnect between research and commercial impact, with academia-industry collaboration ranking a dismal 86th - its lowest ever - despite improvements in other metrics.
This disconnect shows clearly against the patent filing boom among Indian universities, which now account for 42% of all patent submissions, surpassing even prolific patent systems such as those at the University of California. However, these numbers reflect a drive to game metrics that composite indices like GII reward, rather than real advances in useful, commercially viable innovation. Quality and market relevance of patents are overlooked; without strong partnerships between universities and industry, the majority of patents remain far from practical applications. Despite rising ranks, India’s investment in research and development (R&D) remains lethargic at just 0.65% of GDP - far from the levels seen in innovation powerhouses such as the US and China.
Digging deeper, India’s dominance in information and communication technology (ICT) services largely results from labour arbitrage, where Indian firms deploy technologies developed elsewhere, rather than spearheading new technological frontiers. The celebrated growth in late-stage venture capital and the proliferation of unicorns, while reflective of strong capital inflows, rarely translate into breakthrough intellectual property. Most Indian unicorns excel in adapting existing business models for the Indian market - in e-commerce, fintech, and food delivery - rather than forging new pathways in technology. What the GII celebrates as “innovation efficiency” is more accurately a strategic optimisation of metrics: producing countable outputs without investing in the long-term ecosystem development essential for sustained, impactful innovation.
Regional comparisons further complicate the picture. Central and Southern Asia, buoyed by India’s output metrics, now rank higher than Latin America and the Caribbean on the GII, though the latter retains a stronger foundation in innovation inputs such as established industrial R&D infrastructure and manufacturing integration. This output-over-input data point signals potential red flags in the index’s methodology, as genuine capability is often obscured by superficial score optimisation.
Perhaps most telling are the measures the GII omits. Licensing revenue from university patents - a signal of commercially valuable innovation - is not systematically tracked. In reality, most Indian university patents generate little income, which points to their limited market utility. The scarcity of Indian entities seeking expensive international patent protection further highlights the gap between output metrics and substantive innovation; only innovations that can have global commercial potential justify such investment, and few Indian patents meet this threshold.
India’s apparent overperformance on the GII should prompt both celebration and caution. Policymakers risk misreading rising ranks as proof that current strategies work, and may double down on patent count, startup proliferation, and IT exports rather than pursuing the difficult reforms needed to nurture deep innovation capacity. True innovation emerges from dense networks connecting academia, industry, finance, and government over sustained periods - a reality the GII itself acknowledges, yet does not adequately incentivise. If India wishes to convert its innovation promise into technological leadership and economic impact, it must look beyond gaming global indices and invest in foundational research, talent development, and commercialisation.