Wageningen tops global industry collaboration ranking

Wageningen University & Research ranks No. 1 in a new global index that measures verified university-company research, ahead of MIT, Harvard and Oxford. The findings show Japan’s major universities, Harvard’s scale and Europe’s breadth in a ranking designed to capture collaboration that other lists often miss.

Why it matters: - The new Industry Collaboration Index aims to measure a form of university performance that many global rankings downplay: verified research co-written with companies. - The results can reshape how universities, funders and employers judge research strength, especially in fields where industry links drive real-world impact. - The ranking also shows that reputation and publication volume do not always match collaboration performance.

What happened: - Global Research Partnerships published the inaugural Industry Collaboration Index on Oct. 15, 2026. - Wageningen University & Research ranked No. 1 out of 1,038 universities. - MIT ranked No. 2. - The University of Tokyo ranked No. 3, Kyoto University ranked No. 4 and The University of Osaka ranked No. 5. - Cambridge ranked No. 10, Oxford ranked No. 29 and Harvard ranked No. 31.

The details: - Wageningen co-wrote 1,518 verified works with industry. - Wageningen produced 2.24 times the industry collaboration its field mix would predict. - Wageningen worked with FrieslandCampina and Danone in every year analyzed. - Wageningen led Agriculture and Food Technology, ranking No. 1 out of 194 universities in that sector. - Wageningen’s industry research was cited 4.74 times the world average for comparable work. - MIT’s industry research was cited 6.83 times the world average for comparable work. - Harvard co-wrote more verified research with companies than any other university analyzed. - Harvard still ranked No. 31 because the index rewards co-creation, durability and breadth, not just scale. - Harvard led three sector rankings, including Pharmaceuticals and Therapeutics, where it ranked No. 1 out of 638. - Harvard’s partnership with Google produced 216 joint works and ran every year from 2021 to 2025. - That Google tie-up won Global Industry Partnership of the Year. - Oxford won two sector awards: Artificial Intelligence with Google and Aerospace and Aviation with Rolls-Royce. - MIT won with Commonwealth Fusion Systems. - Seoul National University won with Samsung. - Nagoya University won with Toyota Central Research and Development Laboratories.

Between the lines: - Japan’s top universities rank much higher in the Industry Collaboration Index than in Global Research Partnerships’ Research Collaboration Index, which measures collaboration between universities. - The University of Tokyo ranks 149th in the RCI, Kyoto University 281st and The University of Osaka 378th. - NTT is a top-three industry partner of all three universities. - The University of Hong Kong shows the reverse pattern: No. 1 in the RCI but No. 261 in the ICI. - Read together, the two indices suggest universities can be strong in academic collaboration, industry collaboration or both. - Europe holds 46 of the top 100 places, North America 38 and Asia-Pacific 16. - Ten of the Asia-Pacific universities in the top 100 are Japanese. - Mainland Chinese universities lead 14 of the 20 published sector rankings. - Tsinghua University leads five of those sector rankings, including Artificial Intelligence. - The highest-placed universities in other regions are King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in the Middle East at No. 216, Universidade de São Paulo in Latin America at No. 363 and the University of the Witwatersrand in Africa at No. 467. - Global Research Partnerships said the ICI uses verified co-authored research, not reputation surveys, self-reported figures or panel judgments. - The index covered 1,192 universities from 2021 to 2025. - Those universities co-wrote 429,958 verified works with 40,786 company groups. - Global Research Partnerships checked 2,070,335 candidate university-company links against authors’ affiliation text and confirmed 1,148,566. - Every position was tested across 200 re-runs with resampled evidence and varied weights. - Daniel Llewellin, spokesperson for Global Research Partnerships, said co-authored research is a visible, checkable trace of university-company work and deserves evidence as careful as any citation count.

What’s next: - The Global Research Partnerships Partnership Intelligence Platform opens to partner universities on Monday, Oct. 19. - The platform combines both indices and funder records to help universities confirm peers, find university and company partners, match live funding calls and brief boards. - Global Research Partnerships said the platform cannot change any university’s ranking position. - The company said availability and pricing are confirmed with each university and onboarding takes three days. - Global Research Partnerships is offering early access, the full results and a media information page.

The bottom line: - The new index crowns Wageningen, but its bigger message is that industry collaboration can look very different from traditional academic prestige rankings.