Top 50 universities powering global innovation: American dominance; intra-European ties (Clarivate)

Harvard University, Stanford University and MIT (U.S.) are the three top universities powering global innovation, according to a paper by the Institute for Scientific Information (Isi) at Clarivate exploring the role of universities in fostering innovation worldwide, published on 30/01/2025. The paper identifies the top 50 academic research institutions whose papers were most cited by inventions from the Clarivate 2024 Top 100 Global Innovators list.

The article reports American dominance (with 30 universities in the top 50 most cited by Top 100 Global Innovators), "by far the largest source of research cited by inventions".

The analysis reveals neighbouring regional research patterns when it comes to companies citing academic research for innovation, in Asia and Europe mostly, where countries tend to rely on research done by their neighbours or themselves.

It also shows strong intra-European ties, "but, while many countries contribute to research cited by inventions from many other countries, the U.K. is a strong contributor to such research. In particular, 24% of inventions from…