Oman climbed eight places to 47th globally in Innovation Inputs while maintaining its overall position at 69th of 139.
Oman has made a strong jump in the Global Innovation Index 2026, climbing eight places to rank 47th globally in the Innovation Inputs pillar.
The Sultanate maintained its overall position at 69th out of 139 economies, while recording progress across several areas linked to innovation, investment, institutions and research.
The Global Innovation Index is published annually by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and assesses economies using a wide range of innovation-related indicators.
Oman Lands In The Global Top 40 Across 15 Indicators
According to the latest report, 15 of Oman’s sub-indicators ranked among the world’s top 40.
Some of the strongest results included:
- 9th globally for net foreign direct investment flows as a percentage of GDP
- 14th for development of specialised clusters
- 16th for electricity production per million people
- 18th for business policy stability
- 20th for ICT access
- 22nd for STEM graduates
- 24th for entrepreneurship policy and culture
- 26th for university-industry research and development collaboration
Institutions Lead Oman’s Performance
Oman improved in six of the index’s seven main pillars, with Institutions emerging as the country’s strongest-performing category at 39th globally.
Infrastructure ranked 54th, while Market Sophistication reached 58th place, improving by 12 positions compared with last year.
The report also recorded some major jumps in individual indicators.
Oman climbed 32 places in venture capital deals received per billion dollars of GDP at purchasing power parity, and improved by the same margin in industrial designs by origin.
The country also moved up 25 places in the share of research talent employed by businesses.
More Progress In Research And Universities
Oman advanced 23 positions to rank 33rd globally in business-funded research and development spending as a share of total R&D expenditure.
Its performance in the indicator measuring the top three universities in the QS World University Rankings also improved by 16 places.
This followed Sultan Qaboos University rising to 334th globally, alongside the University of Nizwa and Dhofar University entering the world’s top 1,000 universities.
Oman Makes Its First Appearance In Deep Science Startups Tracker
The 2026 report also focused on deep science entrepreneurship, highlighting iLab Marine and Innotech as examples of scientific research and innovation being developed into commercially viable projects.
iLab Marine emerged from the Research and Innovation Authority’s Student Graduation Projects to Startups programme.
The two companies also marked Oman’s first national presence in the Deep Science Startups Tracker, adding another milestone to the country’s growing innovation ecosystem.
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