WEG ranked among the one thousand most innovative companies in the world in the Global Innovation 1000 2014 study. Including WEG, Brazil had a total of eight companies listed with a combined investment of $2.65 billion US spent on innovation from June 2013 to June 2014.

In order to prepare the ranking, Global Innovation analyzed the top one thousand public companies that invested the most in research and development and ranked them by their innovation level.

Besides WEG, which placed 980th in the world ranking, the following Brazilian companies are included: Petrobras (126th ), followed by Vale (166th ), Embraer (492nd), Gerdau (739th), Totvs (879th), Eletrobras (938th) and Natura (978th).

The rankings classify the companies into three types: the "Need Seekers", which seek to engage the consumer directly with new ideas and develop original products oriented to their needs; the "Market Readers", which create products based on the needs of their consumers, the market, and competitors’ products; and the "Technology Drivers", which depend on internal expertise to create new products and services.