Germany's innovation ranking has dropped to 11th globally, with digitalization and entrepreneurial culture urgently needing breakthroughs.

In the latest World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) 2025 Global Innovation Index, Germany's global innovation ranking dropped from ninth to eleventh, and is no longer among the ten most innovative economies.

In WIPO's annual report, Germany's innovation system performed worse than in previous years in terms of inputs (15th) and outputs (8th). The overall efficiency of the German innovation system remains relatively high; Germany's outputs exceed its resource use. Furthermore, Germany ranked fifth globally in the "High-Tech Manufacturing" indicator and maintained its fifth place ranking in "Production and Export Complexity" (up from fourth last year). In terms of logistics, Germany ranked third. While Germany still ranks highly in terms of the number of patent applications and patent families, it only ranks seventh in this year's innovation index, compared to a few years ago when it was the world's leading economy in patent applications.

Germany continues to excel in scientific research, with its large companies' R&D strengths particularly evident. The automotive industry plays a particularly crucial role in this area, with the top three German companies investing the most in R&D all being automakers.

Slow expansion of digital infrastructure and lack of entrepreneurial culture

The report reveals significant weaknesses in Germany's access to and use of digital technologies. The expansion of digital infrastructure, such as broadband internet and high-performance mobile communications, has been slow. Germany ranked only 48th in the "Mobile App Creation" indicator. Germany also performed poorly in terms of the framework conditions for company formation, ranking only 41st in the "Entrepreneurship Policy and Culture" indicator.

Venture capital deals in Germany decreased by 10% compared to the previous year. Venture capital is crucial for startups, as promising technologies need to be transformed into successful business models. Due to the importance of venture capital, WIPO recently included this criterion for the first time in its assessment of the most innovative regions. In terms of venture capital, Germany ranks only between 30th and 40th in the Global Innovation Index. Consequently, Germany does not rank among the top countries for highly valued startups, known as "unicorns." Germany's top three unicorns are Celonis (tech; Munich), N26 (financial services; Berlin), and Personio (HR services; Munich).

Furthermore, Germany ranks only 56th internationally in terms of education spending.