Reuters Top 100: The World's Most Innovative Universities Ranking identifies and ranks the educational institutions doing the most to advance science, invent new technologies and power new markets and industries. Producing a steady stream of innovations that are cited by other researchers in academia and private industry is that sort of influence which is a key measure of the ranking. Reuters Top 100 is compiled in partnership with Clarivate Analytics, and is based on proprietary data and analysis including patent filings and research paper citations.

The Ranking is based on 10 indicators:

Patent Volume (11.1%) - The number of basic patents (patent families) filed by the organization. This is an indication of research output that has a potential for commercial value. Source: Derwent World Patents Index, Derwent Innovations Index.

Patent Success (11.1%) - The ratio of patent applications to grants over the assessed timeframe. This indicates the university’s success in filing applications that are then accepted. Source: Derwent World Patents Index, Derwent Innovations Index.

Global Patents (11.1%) - The percentage of patents for which coverage was sought with the U.S., European and Japanese patent offices. Filing an international patent is an expensive and laborious process and filing in multiple countries or regions is an indication that the invention is considered to be nontrivial and has commercial value. Source:  Derwent World Patents Index, Derwent Innovations Index.

Patent Citations (11.1%) - The total number of times a patent has been cited by other patents. The number of times a patent has been cited is an indication that it has an impact on other commercial R&D. Source: Patents Citation Index.

Patent Citation Impact (5.6%) - This is an indication of how much impact a patent has had. Because it is a ratio (or average), it is not dependent on the size of the organization. Source: Patents Citation Index

Percent of Patents Cited (5.6%) - This indicator is the proportion of patents that have been cited by other patents one or more times. It is closely tied to the Patent Citation Impact indicator. Source: Patents Citation Index.

Patent to Article Citation Impact (11.1%) - This indicator measures the average number of times a journal article has been cited by patents. This unique indicator demonstrates that basic research conducted in an academic setting (as recorded in scholarly articles) has had influence and impact in the realm of commercial research & development (as measured by patents). Source: Patents Citation Index, Derwent World Patents Index, Web of Science Core Collection.

Industry Article Citation Impact (11.1%) - Article-to-article citations are an established indicator of influence and research impact. By limiting the citing articles only to those from industry, this indicator reveals the influence and impact that basic research conducted in an academic setting has had on commercial research. Source: Web of Science Core Collection.

Percent of Industry Collaborative Articles (11.1%) - The percentage of all articles of a university that contain one or more co-authors from a commercial entity. This indicator shows the percentage of research activity that is conducted in collaboration with industry, suggesting potential future economic impact of the research project jointly undertaken. Source: Web of Science Core Collection.

Total Web of Science Core Collection Papers (11.1%) - The total number of journal articles published by the organization. This is a size-dependent measure of the research output of the university. Source: Web of Science Core Collection.