TEHRAN – The Global Innovation Index (GII) has ranked Tehran as the world’s 63rd-largest science and technology (S&T) cluster this year, according to a report released by the UN’s World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).

The GII reveals the top innovation clusters worldwide by size and intensity.

Each year, it ranks the top 100 innovation clusters worldwide using a bottom-up, data-driven methodology that disregards administrative or political borders and instead pinpoints those geographical areas where there is a high density of inventors and scientific authors. The clusters identified in this way often span several municipal districts, sub-federal states, and sometimes even two or more countries.

In 2025, three metrics define the top 100 clusters globally. The first metric focuses on the location of inventors listed in published patent applications under the WIPO Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT).

The second metric considers the authors listed on published scientific articles. These two metrics have served as the foundation for cluster identification across previous GII editions. This year, however, the GII  introduced a third metric, namely Venture capital (VC) deal locations.

The top 100 innovation clusters continue to be predominantly located in three regions: North America, Europe, and Asia.

In Asia, there are four clusters, including Tel Aviv-Jerusalem (19), Starbucks (58), Tehran (63), and Cairo (83).

Tehran is the only cluster within Iran that falls within the top 100 innovation clusters in 2025. It filed 49 Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applications, published 8,269 scientific articles, and had 12 venture capital deals, all per 1 million inhabitants over the latest five years, making it the 63rd largest innovation cluster and 85th innovation cluster by intensity (relative to population density) in 2025.

Top publishing organizations in Tehran are University of Tehran with 7,275 articles (12 percent share), Islamic Azad University with 5,763 articles (10 percent share), and Tehran University of Medical Sciences with 5,158 articles (9 percent share).

Top PCT applicants are Mohammad Abdolahi with 16  patents (four percent share), Ahmad Ghanbari with 5 patents (one percent share), and Mohammad Durali with five patents (one percent).

Some 4 percent of Tehran’s PCT patent applications are filed in collaboration with other inventors, with Los Angeles, Graz, and Vienna emerging as the top collaborative locations; 26 percent of Tehran’s scientific articles are published in collaboration with other organizations, with the top three collaborating locations being Seoul, London, and Boston–Cambridge.

In 2025, Tehran had 357 PCT applications, 60,217 scientific publications, 85 venture capital deals, 0.03 Share of global PCT applications, 0.73 share of global scientific publications, and 0.04 share of global venture capital deals.

The city’s estimated cluster population, PCT application per capita, and scientific publication capita amount to 7.2 trillion dollars, 49 million dollars, and 8.2 billion dollars, respectively.

The venture capital pre-deals per capita is about 11.67, and the total innovation intensity share per capita is 0.11.

In 2023, GII ranked Tehran as the world’s 35th largest science and technology cluster; in 2024, the city ranked 38th.

In 2025, Tehran’s ranking lowered to 63rd, mainly due to the introduction of VC deal counts as a variable in this year’s methodology, not the reduction in academic capacity of the city.

China, for the third consecutive year, leads with the most clusters (24, two fewer than last year) in the top 100. The United States follows closely behind with 22 clusters (+2 compared to last year).

Germany continues to rank third with seven clusters (one fewer than last year) in the top 100, with Munich (27th), Berlin (30th), and Cologne (43rd) in the lead. The United Kingdom now has four clusters among the top 100 (up from three last year, without VC), with London (8th), Cambridge (69th), Oxford (77th), and new entrant Manchester (94th).

France has two clusters in the top 100 (down from three), with Paris still first at rank 12, followed by Lyon (90th), but Basel – a Cross-border cluster previously shared with Germany, France, and Switzerland – drops out of the top 100 ranking.

India still has four clusters in the top 100: Bengaluru (21st), Delhi (26th), Mumbai (46th), and Chennai (84th), with most clusters boosted significantly by the inclusion of VC deal counts.

Japan maintains three clusters among the top 100: Tokyo–Yokohama (2nd), Osaka–Kobe–Kyoto (11th), and Nagoya (28th), whereas the number drops from four to three for the Republic of Korea—Seoul (5th), Daejeon (25th), and Busan (95th), with Daegu dropping out from the top 100.

Canada still has three clusters, with Toronto (33rd) retaining its position as the country’s leading innovation cluster, followed by Montreal (62nd) and Vancouver (66th). Australia now has two clusters in the top 100, down from three in 2024, with Sydney (36th) and Melbourne (52nd).

This year, 10 clusters entered the top 100 for the first time. Miami (67th), Phoenix (78th) and Salt Lake City (92nd) in the USA, Ningbo (93rd) and Ningde (99th) in China, Dublin (71st) in Ireland, Mexico City (79th) in Mexico, Oslo (85th) in Norway, Hamburg (91st) in Germany, and Manchester (94th) in the UK.

MT/MG