UK second only to US in new Industry Collaboration Index, with 12 universities in world top 100 and six of 22 Sector Awards

Cambridge leads at No. 10 and Sheffield, at No. 17, finishes ahead of Oxford and UCL; Oxford is the only double Sector Award winner worldwide.

Title card for the Industry Collaboration Index 2026, United Kingdom regional results, by Global Research Partnerships: 12 UK universities in the world top 100; the University of Cambridge leads at No. 10 of 1,038, with Imperial College London at No. 14; 6 Sector Award wins for UK universities; 27 UK universities in the world top 300; 62 UK universities ranked, of 65 analysed. Results published 15 October 2026, 09:00 BST. — Twelve UK universities are in the world top 100 of the Industry Collaboration Index 2026, led by the University of Cambridge at No. 10, and UK university partnerships win six of the 22 Sector Awards. Results published by Global Research Partnerships on 15 October 2026. Image: Global Research Partnerships. Download the high-resolution image (2400 x 1350, JPEG)

Twelve UK universities are in the world top 100 of the Industry Collaboration Index (ICI), a new global ranking of 1,038 universities on research co-written with companies, published today by Global Research Partnerships (GRP). Only the United States, with 37, has more. UK university partnerships win six of the 22 Sector Awards, second only to the US (seven). The University of Cambridge leads the UK at No. 10, Imperial College London is No. 14 and the University of Sheffield No. 17.

Wageningen University & Research, the Dutch food and agriculture university, is the global No. 1, ahead of MIT, and Japan takes the next three places. The UK holds more of Europe's 46 top-100 places than any other European country, and 27 UK universities are in the top 300.

From 2021 to 2025, UK universities co-wrote 43,145 verified works with 7,764 company groups: one in ten of the 429,958 works in the index. AstraZeneca, which works with more universities than any other company, is the largest partner of 11 of the UK's 12 top-100 universities. University College London (UCL) co-wrote more verified research with companies than any university analysed except Harvard, and is third in both Pharmaceuticals and Therapeutics (of 638) and Medical Technology and Digital Health (of 323).

Sheffield's No. 17 puts it ahead of UCL (No. 25) and the University of Oxford (No. 29). It co-wrote 1.74 times the industry research its mix of fields predicts, working with AstraZeneca, Rolls-Royce and Siemens every year. In GRP's Research Collaboration Index (RCI), which measures collaboration between universities, Oxford is No. 3 and Sheffield No. 77: the two indices reveal different strengths.

Each Sector Award goes to the highest-scoring eligible partnership, with no panel, nomination or payment. Oxford is the only double winner worldwide, with Google (Artificial Intelligence) and Rolls-Royce (Aerospace and Aviation). Imperial wins with Shell (Chemicals, Process and Resources), the University of Leeds with Arup Group (Built Environment and Infrastructure), the University of Nottingham with Rolls-Royce (Robotics and Autonomous Systems) and Queen's University Belfast with Nokia (Next-Generation Communications). Sixteen UK universities hold 28 finalist places.

The University of Edinburgh (No. 48) leads Scotland, with the University of Glasgow (No. 64) also in the top 100. Cardiff University (No. 111) leads Wales, where Swansea University, working every year with Tata Steel and Rolls-Royce, is No. 170, against 280 in the RCI.

Both indices measure collaboration directly from co-authored research, with no reputation surveys or self-reported figures. GRP analysed 1,192 universities, 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

Since the RCI launched on 15 September, Queen Mary and the University of East Anglia have celebrated their results. “I am incredibly proud that Queen Mary has been ranked 25th in the world for our research collaborations,” said Professor Colin Bailey CBE, President of Queen Mary University of London, in the university's announcement.

Full results: globalresearchpartnerships.com/ici/
UK results: globalresearchpartnerships.com/ici/rankings/#country=GB
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

Coverage: 1,192 universities in 81 countries and territories, 65 of them in the UK; 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 (62 in the UK). Bands: Platinum 1 to 100, Gold 101 to 300, Silver 301 to 600, none beyond. UK: 12 Platinum, 15 Gold, 12 Silver.
UK totals count each work once, even when two UK universities co-wrote it (the CC BY link ledger, reconciled to the published totals). Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are grouped by location; the index itself ranks by country.
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, and 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%.
Validation: as a check, not proof, rank agreement with an independent open measure of university and industry co-publication is 0.80 across 1,147 universities.
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. Every 2026 winner co-published in all five years.
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.
Professor Colin Bailey's words are from Queen Mary University of London's announcement of 18 September 2026: qmul.ac.uk/news/latest-news/2026/queen-mary-news/pr/queen-mary-ranked-25th-in-world-for-research-collaboration.html

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