Brazil's Unesp ranks No. 6 worldwide for agriculture and food research with companies as USP leads Latin America in new Industry Collaboration Index

Brazil fills Latin America's first 12 places in a global index topped by Wageningen ahead of MIT, and Universidade de São Paulo's partnership with Apis Flora is the region's only Sector Award finalist.

Title card for the Industry Collaboration Index 2026, Latin America regional results, by Global Research Partnerships: 38 universities ranked across 6 countries; Universidade de São Paulo leads the region at No. 363 of 1,038, with Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro at No. 424; 4 universities with Silver standing, in the world top 600; Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp) is No. 6 of 194 in Agriculture and Food Technology; 1 Sector Award finalist place. Results published 15 October 2026. — Universidade de São Paulo leads Latin America in the Industry Collaboration Index 2026, and Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp) is No. 6 of 194 in Agriculture and Food Technology. Results and Sector Award winners published by Global Research Partnerships on 15 October 2026. Image: Global Research Partnerships. Download the high-resolution image (2400 x 1350, JPEG)

Brazil's Universidade Estadual Paulista (Unesp) is No. 6 of 194 universities in Agriculture and Food Technology, ahead of Iowa State University, in the Industry Collaboration Index (ICI), a new global ranking of research co-written with companies, published today by Global Research Partnerships (GRP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP) leads Latin America at No. 363 of 1,038 ranked universities.

Brazilian universities fill the region's first 12 places, and four are in the world's top 500: USP, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro (UFRJ, No. 424), Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS, No. 465) and Unesp (No. 481). UFRJ is in the world's top 5% for durability, the share of its industry work in sustained partnerships.

Agriculture and food is the region's standout. Six Brazilian universities sit in the top half of the sector ranking, which Wageningen leads: Unesp, USP (No. 20), Universidade Federal de Viçosa (No. 34), Universidade Federal de Lavras (No. 58), UFRGS (No. 78) and Universidade Federal de Goiás (No. 96). Unesp co-wrote 156 verified works in the sector, two or more with each of 25 company groups, led by Trouw Nutrition, Evonik and Alltech.

USP's strength is scale: 1,616 verified works with companies from 2021 to 2025 and 224 company groups with two or more joint works, Fleury S.A. (nearly 100 joint works) and Vale (about 50) among those it worked with every year. Its partnership with Brazilian company Apis Flora is Latin America's only finalist in the 22 Sector Awards, one of 10 in Agriculture and Food Technology.

The ICI also shows strengths that GRP's Research Collaboration Index (RCI), which measures collaboration between universities, does not: Lavras (No. 637) and Viçosa (No. 642) stand far higher in the ICI than in the RCI, where USP leads Latin America at 253 of 1,195. Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro (No. 686) has the region's highest share of research co-written with companies among ranked universities, 2.7%.

National leaders elsewhere are Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile (No. 732), with Siemens its leading partner; Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (No. 745); Universidad Nacional de Colombia (No. 868); Universidad de la República, Uruguay (No. 968); and Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Argentina (No. 971). Of the region's 65 universities analysed, 38 are ranked, and together the 65 co-wrote more than 10,000 verified works with more than 2,500 company groups.

Worldwide, Wageningen University & Research beats MIT to No. 1, and Japan takes the next three places. Most global rankings rest on reputation surveys, publications and citations, with collaboration at most a minor indicator. The ICI measures collaboration with companies directly through co-authored research, as the RCI does between universities, with no surveys or self-reported figures.

From 2021 to 2025, the 1,192 universities analysed co-wrote 429,958 verified works with 40,786 company groups. GRP checked 2,070,335 candidate university-company links against authors' affiliation text, confirming 1,148,566, and tested every overall position across 200 re-runs with the evidence resampled and the weights varied.

“Co-authored research is one visible, checkable trace of how universities and companies work together, and it deserves evidence as careful as any citation count. Every link in this index can be traced to what a researcher wrote about where they work,” said Daniel Llewellin of Global Research Partnerships.

The GRP Partnership Intelligence Platform, opening to partner universities on Monday 19 October, turns both indices and published funder records into next steps, from confirming peers and finding partners to matching live funding calls. It cannot change any position. GRP confirms availability and pricing with each university; onboarding takes three days. Early access: globalresearchpartnerships.com/platform/#first-access

Full results: globalresearchpartnerships.com/ici/
Latin America: globalresearchpartnerships.com/ici/regions/#latin-america
Media enquiries: globalresearchpartnerships.com/ici/press/

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

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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

Region: Latin America as the index defines it: 65 universities analysed in Brazil (42), Mexico (7), Chile (4), Colombia (4), Argentina (3), Peru (2), Costa Rica (1), the Dominican Republic (1) and Uruguay (1); 38 are ranked. Universities with fewer than 100 verified industry works are listed with their evidence but not yet ranked.
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.
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%. Each sector position uses that sector's own pool: Agriculture and Food Technology ranks 194 universities.
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%.
Regional totals are counted from the published link ledger (distinct works and company groups with a verified link to one of the 65 Latin American universities analysed) and rounded down. The RCI and the ICI rank different pools (1,195 and 1,038 universities), so positions are given with their pools.
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 2026 Agriculture and Food Technology Award went to Iowa State University with Bayer. Universidade de São Paulo with Apis Flora is the only Latin American partnership among the 206 finalists in the 22 categories.
Durability is a percentile among the 1,038 ranked universities: Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro scores 95.9, and 42 universities score higher.
Joint works are counted as the index counts them: a link through a researcher listed at both a university and a company counts half, which is why some totals end in .5 on university profiles.
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.

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