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LONDON, United Kingdom, 15 October 2026

University of Queensland tops Australia in new global Industry Collaboration Index as five Australian universities make the world top 300

Melbourne, Sydney, UNSW and Monash follow Queensland, Auckland leads New Zealand and Newcastle with BHP is a Sector Award finalist, as Wageningen tops the world ahead of MIT.

ENDS

About Global Research Partnerships

Global Research Partnerships (GRP) publishes the Research Collaboration Index and the Industry Collaboration Index, two indices of equal standing built from the open scholarly record. The index is free, public and independent; no commercial relationship changes any position. globalresearchpartnerships.com

Media enquiries

Interviews, data and image requests: use the Industry Collaboration Index press and media page. Corrections and other requests about the index: the requests page.

Notes to editors

• Coverage: 1,192 universities in 81 countries and territories; research co-authored with companies in the open scholarly record, 2021 to 2025. The 1,038 with at least 100 verified industry works are ranked. Bands: Platinum 1 to 100, Gold 101 to 300, Silver 301 to 600, none beyond.
• Australia and New Zealand: 34 universities analysed (27 in Australia, 7 in New Zealand), 31 of them ranked (26 and 5). By band: 5 Gold (Queensland, Melbourne, Sydney, UNSW Sydney, Monash), 7 Silver (Western Australia, Adelaide, Macquarie, Auckland, Murdoch, Curtin, Australian National University) and 19 ranked beyond 600; three have too little verified evidence to be ranked. In the index both countries sit in its Asia-Pacific region; this release groups them together.
• Every sector position of 75 or better from the region, each out of that sector's own pool (none of these sectors is provisional):The University of Queensland 24 of 237 (Chemicals, Process and Resources), 45 of 194 (Agriculture and Food Technology) and 49 of 373 (Climate, Environment and Sustainability); The University of Melbourne 39 of 220 (Biotechnology and Advanced Therapies), 59 of 638 (Pharmaceuticals and Therapeutics) and 65 of 194 (Agriculture and Food Technology); Massey University 48 of 194 (Agriculture and Food Technology); The University of Sydney 51 of 220 (Biotechnology and Advanced Therapies), 51 of 323 (Medical Technology and Digital Health), 58 of 292 (Artificial Intelligence) and 72 of 638 (Pharmaceuticals and Therapeutics); UNSW Sydney 59 of 237 (Chemicals, Process and Resources) and 75 of 295 (Clean Energy Transition); The University of Western Australia 62 of 194 (Agriculture and Food Technology); Monash University 65 of 638 (Pharmaceuticals and Therapeutics); Curtin University 74 of 237 (Chemicals, Process and Resources).
• Sector Award finalists from the region: University of Newcastle Australia with BHP (Chemicals, Process and Resources); The University of Queensland with Corteva (Agriculture and Food Technology); The University of Sydney with Jingdong (Artificial Intelligence). Each pair co-published in all five years. The winners in those categories, announced with the index: Imperial College London with Shell (Chemicals, Process and Resources), Iowa State University with Bayer (Agriculture and Food Technology) and University of Oxford with Google (Artificial Intelligence). Live award pages list the winner first, then the other finalists alphabetically.
• Research with companies against what each university's mix of fields predicts (verified industry works divided by the number expected from its mix of fields, the basis of the co-creation pillar): The University of Melbourne 1.02 times, The University of Sydney 0.90, The University of Queensland 0.89, Monash University 0.88 and UNSW Sydney 0.86; for comparison, Wageningen University & Research 2.24 and MIT 1.81.
• Sectors: a university is ranked in a sector with at least 20 verified industry works in it; the sector score weights volume 30%, reach 25%, repeat partnerships (three or more works over two or more years) 25% and network influence within the sector 20%. Sectors with fewer than 50 eligible universities are provisional. The Robotics and Autonomous Systems ranking is withheld (9 eligible, below the minimum of 10); its Sector Award is still made.
• Pillars, each a percentile among ranked universities: co-creation 30% (the share of a university's research co-written with a verified company, against what its mix of fields predicts), durability 20% (the share of that work in sustained partnerships), scale 30% (the size of its industry network) and breadth 20% (how varied its company partners' main research fields are).
• Robustness: every published overall position is tested across 200 re-runs in which the works are resampled and each pillar weight varies by up to 25%.
• The winner in each category is the finalist with the highest partnership score (volume of joint work 40%, years active 30%, field-weighted citation impact 30%) in the frozen Edition 1 record. No panel, nomination or payment plays any part.
• The RCI and the ICI measure different things (collaboration between universities; co-authored research with companies) over different pools (1,195 universities in the RCI; 1,038 ranked in the ICI), so the two positions are printed side by side, never as a change from one to the other.
• Volume: "over 2,500 works" is the University of Melbourne's count of verified industry works, 2021 to 2025, in which a work shared through a dual affiliation counts half. "Among the 100 largest totals" places Melbourne, Monash and Sydney among the 100 universities with the most verified industry works of the 1,192 analysed; it is a count, not a position in the index.
• What the index does not measure: it shows co-authored research between universities and companies, not confidential projects, consultancy or licensing, and it does not show that jobs, products, therapies or economic outcomes resulted from any partnership. Clinical trials and funded partnerships are reported on university profiles, not scored.
• Industry and awards: market-producing state-owned enterprises count as industry, following the OECD Frascati Manual, and are marked throughout. Award eligibility is screened: partnerships with state-owned or state-controlled companies, with companies or universities on UK, EU, UN or US sanctions or restricted-party lists, or with companies that are primarily defence producers cannot win an award. The index itself counts every verified partnership.
• Reuse: the rankings, sector indices, award finalists, company verification table, topic-to-sector map and full link ledger are released under CC BY 4.0; attribute as “Industry Collaboration Index, Global Research Partnerships”. The RCI and the ICI have equal standing, and every university profile links to both.
• The University of Sydney's newsroom reported its RCI result (No. 19 in the world, Platinum standing) on 15 September 2026, in a story on its global ranking results; it is linked from the GRP homepage section on universities celebrating their results.

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