China has climbed to 9th place globally in the National Innovation Index Report 2025, released Sunday by the China Academy of Science and Technology Development (CASTD) at the 2026 Zhongguancun Forum Annual Conference, marking steady progress toward the country's goals of becoming a leading innovative nation and a global science and technology powerhouse.

The report, annually released by the CASTD since 2011, evaluates the innovation capabilities of 60 countries by constructing an indicator system from five aspects – innovation resources, knowledge creation, enterprise innovation, innovation performance, and innovation environment – using a total of 43 indicators.

The top ten countries in the overall ranking in 2025 are the US, Switzerland, Sweden, the UK, Germany, Japan, Denmark, South Korea, China, and the Netherlands. China moved one place higher than last year, with key indicators growing faster than those of many developed nations.

Compared with 2012, China's overall ranking improved by 11 places, making it the fastest-improving country in the past decade and the only middle-income country to enter the world's top ten.

The report notes that China has made significant progress in "innovation resources," "knowledge creation" and "enterprise innovation," though improvements are still needed in "innovation performance" and "innovation environment."

It recommends increased investment in China's basic research, better integration of scientific and industrial innovation, deepening the reform of the scientific and technological innovation systems and mechanisms, and enhancing the overall efficiency of the national innovation system to more effectively support and lead high-quality national development.

The National Innovation Index provides a key measure of a country's overall innovation capacity and serves as an important reference for accessing the progress toward building an innovative nation and a science and technology powerhouse.