Sydney ranked #1 among innovative universities

Highlighting our commitment to cultivating innovation, the ranking is based on the level of basic research that is being translated most widely and successfully into commercial applications through patents.

University of Sydney Vice-Chancellor Dr Michael Spence said the results were testament to the quality and hard work of our staff, and our world-class research and teaching facilities.

“These particular rankings place strong emphasis on patents generated by universities and we are pleased to see our work in this area reflected in these results, which reinforce our strategic approach to innovation and the importance we place on translating our research into real world outcomes.

“We more than doubled our contract research revenue to $71 million in 2015. We are also grateful for the strong support we receive from our partners including Rio Tinto in mine automation, Microsoft in quantum computing and UK-based solar-energy company Armstrong Energy in the development of nano-structured gel-based batteries in conjunction with our affiliate company Gelion Pty Ltd.”

Thomson Reuters identified 150 academic and government organisations that published the greatest number of articles in scholarly journals from 2009 to 2014. The list was then confined to Asia-based universities that were named as assignees on 50 or more world patents between 2009 and 2014.

Institutions were given a score based on 10 criteria, including patent volume, patent success, global patents, patent citations, patent citation impact, percent of patents cited, patent to article citation impact, industry article citation impact, percentage of industry collaborative articles, and total web of science core collection papers.

A composite score was achieved by summing the ranks for each criterion for each university.

Our dominant fields for patent volume were pharmaceuticals and biotech and agriculture, forestry and food.

View a complete list of the 2016 Top 75: Asia’s Most Innovative Universities.