In Global Smartness Ranking, Philippines Isn't Doing So Well

TradingPlatforms.io, an online financial comparison website designed to help investors evaluate and select online brokers, recently released its 2026 Global Intelligence Ranking. "How smart is your country?" it asks.

The platform ranked 80 countries by constructing a comprehensive Smartness Score between 0 and 100, which is measured through three dimensions: student performance OECD's 2025 Programme for International Student Assessment, or PISA), high-quality scientific output (from the publicly available Nature Index, which tracks research output at the national and institutional level, for the year 2025), and measured cognitive ability (based on the 2016 edition of the International IQ Test website).

Singapore ranks among the 80 nations, with a Smartness Score of 87.13 out of 100, coming from a PISA Results Average of 555, 411.12 High-Quality Research Papers Count, and 103.56 Average IQ.

The Philippines didn't make it to the top 20 of said list, earning only a Smartness Score of 21.95. Numbers show a PISA Average of 386 (ranking it at 68 out of 80), a Science Publications score of 1.03 (ranking it at 77 out of 80, and an Average IQ of 95.68 (ranking it at 65 out of 80).

The lowest-ranking country has a Smartness Score of 4.52, which, according to this comparison by TradingPlatforms, is Kenya. The African country has a PISA Average of 315, a Science Publications score of 2.87, and an Average IQ of 91.69.

As a disclaimer, TradingPlatforms said it excluded China, Hong Kong, and Macau due to the unavailability of comparable national assessments.

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