October 11, 2018

Stanford, MIT and Harvard top the fourth annual Reuters Top 100 ranking of the most innovative universities 

NEW YORK, OCTOBER 11, 2018 – Stanford University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Harvard University top the fourth annual Reuters Top 100 ranking of the world’s most innovative universities, a list that identifies and ranks the educational institutions doing the most to advance science, invent new technologies and power new markets and industries. The Reuters Top 100 is compiled in partnership with Clarivate Analytics and is based on proprietary data and analysis of numerous indicators including patent filings and research paper citations.

Contributing to its solid foothold at number one are Stanford’s steady stream of patents and research which are frequently cited by other academics around the world. Recent Stanford research highlights include several developments in the field of artificial intelligence, including the next generation of camera systems to guide self-driving cars and simulators that can predict potential drug interactions before new pharmaceuticals are ever tested on humans.

While a few U.K. and Asia based schools have ascended, American universities continue to lead the Reuters’ ranking. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for example, places second on the list, and Harvard University comes in third, making 2018 the fourth consecutive year that those universities have held those exact spots. The University of Pennsylvania came in fourth place for the second consecutive year, and the University of Washington is up two spots to round out the top five. The University of Texas System placed sixth. Belgium’s KU Leuven, ranked #7, is the highest ranked university outside the US, followed by Imperial College London (#8), the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill (#9) and Vanderbilt University (#10). Overall, eight of last year’s ten highest-ranked universities remained in the top ten.

Overall, the United States continues to dominate the list, with 46 universities in the top 100; Germany and Japan are tied for second best performing country, with nine universities each. South Korea has eight universities on the list; China, France and the United Kingdom each have 5; Switzerland has 3; Belgium, Canada, Israel and the Netherlands have 2, and Denmark and Singapore each have 1. Considered on a regional basis, North America has 48 universities in the top 100, Europe has 27, Asia has 23, and the Middle East has 2. There are no universities in the top 100 located in Africa, South America or Oceania.

For more on the Reuters Top 100, including a detailed methodology and profiles of the universities, visit https://www.reuters.com/innovative-universities-2018.

The Reuters Top 100: The World’s Most Innovative Universities

1          Stanford University
2          Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
3          Harvard University
4          University of Pennsylvania
5          University of Washington
6          University of Texas System
7          KU Leuven
8          Imperial College London
9          University of North Carolina Chapel Hill
10         Vanderbilt University
11         KAIST
12         Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne
13         Pohang University of Science & Technology (POSTECH)
14         University of California System
15         University of Southern California
16         Cornell University
17         Duke University
18         University of Cambridge
19         Johns Hopkins University
20         University of Tokyo
21         California Institute of Technology
22         Osaka University
23         University of Michigan System
24         Northwestern University
25         University of Wisconsin System
26         Kyoto University
27         University of Minnesota System
28         University of Illinois System
29         Georgia Institute of Technology
30         University of Utah
31         University of Erlangen Nuremberg
32         Ohio State University
33         Columbia University
34         Seoul National University
35         University of Toronto
36         Tohoku University
37         University of Pittsburgh
38         Yale University
39         Sungkyunkwan University
40         University of Oxford
41         University of Colorado System
42         Tufts University
43         Baylor College of Medicine
44         Tsinghua University
45         Technical University of Munich
46         Kyushu University
47         University of Minnesota System
48         University College London
49         ETH Zurich
50         Purdue University System
51         University of Chicago
52         Oregon Health & Science University
53         University of Manchester
54         Indiana University System
55         University of Montpellier
56         University of Munich
57         Technical University of Denmark
58         Emory University
59         Peking University
60         Sorbonne University
61         University of British Columbia
62         Delft University of Technology
63         National University of Singapore
64         Princeton University
65         University of Zurich
66         Hanyang University
67         Case Western Reserve University
68         Yonsei University
69         Rutgers State University
70         Boston University
71         University of Massachusetts System
72         Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz
73         Wake Forest University
74         Keio University
75         Korea University
76         University of Florida
77         Leiden University
78         University of Paris Descartes - Paris 5
79         Hebrew University of Jerusalem
80         University of Cincinnati
81         University of Freiburg
82         Ruprecht Karl University Heidelberg
83         State University of New York System
84         University of Claude Bernard - Lyon 1
85         University of Virginia
86         Dresden University of Technology
87         University of Iowa
88         Ghent University
89         Shanghai Jiao Tong University
90         Hokkaido University
91         Tel Aviv University
92         Karlsruhe Institute of Technology
93         Zhejiang University
94         Fudan University
95         University of Miami
96         Arizona State University
97         University of Paris Sud - Paris 11
98         Gwangju Institute of Science & Technology
99         Nagoya University
100       Free University of Berlin

Reuters

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Clarivate Analytics

Clarivate™ Analytics is the global leader in providing trusted insights and analytics to accelerate the pace of innovation. Building on a heritage going back more than a century and a half, we have built some of the most trusted brands across the innovation lifecycle, including the Web of Science™, Cortellis™, Derwent™, CompuMark™, MarkMonitor® and Techstreet™. Today, Clarivate Analytics is a new and independent company on a bold entrepreneurial mission, to help our clients radically reduce the time from new ideas to life-changing innovations. For more information, please visit clarivate.com.
 

CONTACT

Heather Carpenter
PR Manager, Head of Special Projects
Reuters
heather.carpenter@thomsonreuters.com
646-223-8551