Top 20 most innovative universities around the globe, 2015

Located in the heart of California’s Silicon Valley, Stanford University was ranked at number 1 on the list of top 20 most innovative universities around the globe while Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) was ranked 2nd and Ivy League stalwart Harvard University, ranked at third.

There’s a nice surprise at No. 4 — the University of Washington and at No. 5 the University of Michigan. Innovation is hard to measure, to answer that question, the Reuters study first identified 500 research institutions that published the most articles in scholarly journals from 2008 to 2013, and then narrowed the list by cross-referencing the number of patents each institution filed based on university inventions.

Top 20 most innovative universities around the globe, 2015:

1. Stanford University, USA
Score: 1,685

2. Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), USA
Score: 1,671

3. Harvard University, USA
Score: 1,609

4. University of Washington, USA
Score: 1,576

5. University of Michigan System, USA
Score: 1,562

6. Northwestern University, USA
Score: 1,558

7. University of Texas System, USA
Score: 1,557

8. University of Wisconsin System, USA
Score: 1,548

9. University of Pennsylvania, USA
Score: 1,519

10. Korea Advanced Institute of Science & Technology (KAIST), SOUTH KOREA
Score: 1,515

11. Imperial College London, UK
Score: 1,478

12. Pohang University of Science & Technology (POSTECH), SOUTH KOREA
Score: 1,470

13. University of California System, USA
Score: 1,469

14. University of Southern California, USA
Score: 1,462

15. University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, USA
Score: 1,460

16. KU Leuven, BELGIUM
Score: 1,453

17. Duke University, USA
Score: 1,441

18. Osaka University, JAPAN
Score: 1,429

19. Johns Hopkins University, USA
Score: 1,424

20. California Institute of Technology, USA
Score: 1,420