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Industry Collaboration Index

Industry Collaboration Index · press

For journalists

The results are published at 09:00 BST, Thursday 15 October 2026. Accredited journalists can request the embargoed press kit before then.

The embargoed kit is provisional. Universities can submit corrections until 17:00 BST on Tuesday 13 October, so any figure in the kit may change after that. A corrected, versioned numerical kit follows on Wednesday 14 October 2026 and replaces the first version: please check every figure against it before publication. Nothing may be published before 09:00 BST, Thursday 15 October 2026.

Request the embargoed kit

We use these details only to send the embargoed kit, its corrected version and replies to your request. Interview requests can use the same form: say so in the outlet field.

Before you write

  • Leading positions are sensitive to evidence and weighting choices. Compare the published sensitivity ranges alongside the point estimates.
  • Every published overall rank carries its sensitivity range; please print the range beside the rank. Sensitivity range: the positions that hold 90% of 200 re-runs in which works are resampled and each pillar weight varies by up to 25%, widened where needed to contain the published position. It shows how much a position depends on evidence and weighting choices; it is not a formal test of equality and does not model every source of error, such as affiliation, company-grouping or sector-classification errors.
  • Verification: 1,966,368 candidate university and company links were checked against the affiliations their authors wrote; 937,119 could not be confirmed and were set aside before scoring. That figure includes false assignments and also true links the text could not confirm. A hand audit on 3 October 2026, before the second round of verification fixes, found 91.8% of 200 verified links correct (95% interval 88.2 to 95.5%); about 85% among the smallest companies. In a sample of set-aside links from that audit, about 13% were in fact the right company, so the index misses some true links as well as keeping some false ones. A fresh, stratified internal audit of this edition, after those fixes, is complete and is awaiting an independent human check of 30 items; its result will be published here as a dated update. Update, 6 October 2026: two further internal audits of this edition, the second of them independent of the first, agree with the published figure; the independent audit found 92.9% of 200 verified links correct (95% interval 88.4 to 95.7%). Both were adjudicated with an AI assistant, not by a person. Both found that errors concentrate in links the open record no longer attributes to the company, so on 6 October 2026 every verified link was rechecked against the current record and 14,537 links it no longer supports (the company or the university no longer appears on the paper) were set aside before the final scores were calculated. An independent human check of 30 audit items is pending; its result will be published here as a dated update.
  • The index covers co-authored research from 2021 to 2025. It does not show that any partnership produced jobs, products, therapies or economic outcomes.
  • Robotics: 4 universities eligible (at least 20 verified works in the sector); ranking withheld because the eligible pool is below the publication minimum of 10.
  • State-owned enterprises that produce for the market count as industry (OECD Frascati Manual) and are marked. Funded partnerships (UKRI, EU CORDIS) and clinical trials are reported, not scored.
  • Sector Awards: the finalists and the winner in each category are announced with the index at 09:00 BST, Thursday 15 October 2026. The winner is the finalist with the highest partnership score; there is no judging panel.
  • The index is free, public and independent. No commercial relationship with any university or company changes any position, and no one can pay to be included, excluded or moved.

The regional releases

  • United States and Canada: United States, Canada
  • United Kingdom and Ireland: United Kingdom, Ireland
  • Mainland China: mainland China
  • Hong Kong and Macau: Hong Kong, Macau
  • Taiwan: Taiwan
  • Japan: Japan
  • Germany, Austria and Switzerland: Germany, Austria, Switzerland
  • France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Morocco, Tunisia and Cameroon (French-language release): France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Morocco, Tunisia, Cameroon
  • Spain and Spanish-speaking Latin America: Spain, Mexico, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Uruguay, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic
  • Brazil and Portugal: Brazil, Portugal
  • The Netherlands and the Nordic countries: Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland
  • Korea, South and Southeast Asia and Oceania: Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, India, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal
  • The world: all countries in the cohort

Questions and answers · Methodology · How every link was checked

Interviews and media enquiries: Daniel Llewellin, spokesperson, through the request form on this page