By Bosphorus News Economy Desk
Türkiye ranks fifth for industrial diversity, sixth for industrial designs and seventh for trademarks, yet 45th overall in the World Intellectual Property Organization's (WIPO) Global Innovation Index 2026. Its rankings for high-technology exports and university-industry research collaboration are far lower.
The index, published September 29, covers 139 economies. Türkiye stands 51st for innovation inputs and 39th for outputs. Its overall position moved from 37th in 2024 to 43rd in 2025 and 45th in 2026, although changes in methodology and data coverage limit direct comparisons. WIPO places its 2026 rank within a statistical confidence interval of 40th to 47th and identifies Türkiye among the strongest long-term climbers in the middle-income group since 2013.
Manufacturing breadth, uneven technology results
The industrial diversity ranking measures how production is spread across manufacturing industries. It comes from a concentration index, not an assessment of the technology embedded in those industries. Fifth place establishes the breadth of Türkiye's manufacturing base; it does not measure the technology its firms develop.
Industrial designs and trademarks rank sixth and seventh, respectively, both adjusted for economic size. The share of research talent employed in businesses is 66.3%, ranking eighth, while the share of total R&D financed by businesses is 53.8%, ranking 22nd. Domestic patent applications rank 21st, with international applications under the Patent Cooperation Treaty 29th, also on GDP-adjusted measures. These results complicate any blanket claim that Türkiye lacks inventive activity.
Technology exports and research links occupy lower positions. High-technology exports account for 2.2% of total trade in WIPO's dataset, placing Türkiye 58th. Information and communication technology services exports rank 82nd, university-industry research and development collaboration 74th, and the share of science and engineering graduates 94th. Türkiye stands 103rd on the institutional pillar, including 108th for rule of law and 109th for policy stability for doing business. The indicators have different underlying measures, some survey-based, and do not establish that one ranking caused another.
What the capabilities study measures
A separate WIPO study, Innovation Capabilities Outlook 2026, published with Harvard University's Growth Lab on January 29, examines the knowledge economies already possess. It maps 2,508 fields across production, science, technology and entrepreneurship in 193 economies, using data from 2001 to 2023. Its measures draw on exports, international patent families, internationally registered trademarks and highly cited scientific publications.
The study measures how closely an economy's existing activities relate to fields it might enter next. Moving into a technically demanding field can require production experience, research knowledge and commercial expertise that industrial diversity alone does not capture. The method helps examine those connections without assuming that a varied industrial base will produce advanced technology.
International patenting is highly concentrated. The ten leading economies by international patent families accounted for 87% of the global total in 2023. WIPO estimates that only 10% of the economies studied reach the technological patenting potential predicted by their other capabilities. Its model puts the worldwide shortfall at about 339,000 complex patent innovations annually. That is not a measured Turkish patent deficit.
The Outlook does not assess Türkiye separately in its main narrative, and the PDF omits many rows from its country tables in favor of the digital edition. Its model estimates also cannot be merged with the Global Innovation Index rankings: the two studies use different measures and periods.
Which industries turn research into technology?
Türkiye's 74th-place ranking for university-industry research collaboration is a starting point. Its industrial diversity score cannot show which sectors work closely with universities, how often research produces internationally protected inventions or which firms turn that work into technology exports. Answering those questions would require sector-level patent, research and trade data.
Research spending adds another dimension. WIPO puts Türkiye's R&D expenditure at 1.5% of gross domestic product, ranking 29th. The country ranks 39th for innovation outputs and fourth overall among upper-middle-income economies. Those figures document research and innovation activity, but not where it leads to internationally competitive technology. The gap between collaboration, patenting and export indicators needs to be examined industry by industry.
Read the full report: WIPO, Innovation Capabilities Outlook 2026 (PDF).
Sources: World Intellectual Property Organization, WIPO Global Innovation Index 2026, WIPO Innovation Capabilities Outlook 2026, WIPO Türkiye economy profile, Bosphorus News review and reporting.