Universities in High-Income Economies Remain the Most Connected Globally, While Universities in Hong Kong, China, the Netherlands, the United States, Qatar, Iran, Brazil, And South Africa Drive Regional Progress

China, India, and Uganda host the best-connected universities among middle- and low-income economies

The Global Innovation Index (GII) tracks how economies perform in innovation — from research investment to technology diffusion. Within its Business Sophistication pillar, the Innovation Linkages sub-pillar captures a critical question: how effectively do universities, firms, and governments collaborate to turn ideas into impact?

Universities lie at the heart of every innovation ecosystem. They create knowledge, train skilled talent, and link scientific discovery to real-world application. Their ability to collaborate — locally and globally — determines how effectively research translates into innovation. Policymakers increasingly prioritize this role. National strategies emphasize university–industry cooperation, co-publishing, and technology transfer. The GII’s focus on innovation linkages reflects this growing attention to how partnerships shape competitiveness.

In the GII 2025, a new indicator — University industry and international engagement (5.2.3) — deepens this analysis. Using data from the Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings (WUR). It captures how universities connect with businesses and international partners, offering a fresh perspective on how higher education drives innovation ecosystems. The results show a familiar pattern — universities in high-income economies still lead — but also a promising shift: universities in emerging economies are making notable progress.

Complementing GII Data with THE Insights

The GII integrates THE-WUR data on two dimensions: industry engagement and international outlook.

• Industry engagement captures how universities interact with firms through income from industry and patent citations.
• International outlook reflects global connectivity via international staff, students, and co-authored publications.

By combining these with existing GII indicators — such as university–industry co-publications (indicator 5.2.1, introduced in the GII 2024) — the GII can better assess how universities connect innovation actors both nationally and globally.

Universities in high-Income Economies Lead worldwide in Collaboration and Global Reach

The results confirm that universities in high-income economies remain the most connected globally. Universities in Hong Kong, China ranks first overall, led by the City University of Hong Kong, which performs strongly in both industry engagement and international collaboration. Universities in the Netherlands, Singapore, Australia, Switzerland, and the United States follow closely — reflecting their deep integration in global research networks and strong partnerships with industry (Table 1).

Even among these leaders, the data show a steep drop in scores further down the ranking, underlining how top-performing universities retain a distinct competitive edge.

Table 1. Top 10 economies by average performance on university industry engagement and international outlook

Universities in China, India and Uganda lead the middle-income and low-income groups, respectively

Among upper middle-income economies, China ranks 19th overall, led by Peking University in Beijing, which also supports the city’s top position among global innovation clusters. China, for instance, combines rapid university expansion with growing industry R&D activity, creating fertile ground for collaboration. South Africa (24th) and Türkiye (26th) follow, showing growing engagement between academia and the private sector (Table 2).

Among lower middle-income economies, Indian universities dominate in industry engagement, reflecting its dynamic startup ecosystem and R&D capabilities. The Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru anchors this success. Univerisites in Jordan (41st) and Lebanon (39th) perform best in international outlook, followed by Egypt (54th), showcasing strong global academic linkages in the Middle East.

Universities from four low-income economies — all from Sub-Saharan Africa — are included in the ranking: Uganda (63rd), Rwanda (73rd), Mozambique (83rd) and Ethiopia (103rd). Uganda leads by a notable margin in international outlook, while the other economies show relatively comparable performance in industry engagement.

Table 2. Top 3 economies across middle- and low-income groups by average performance on university industry engagement and international outlook

Universities in Hong Kong, China, the Netherlands, the United States, Qatar, Iran, Brazil, and South Africa lead its respective regions

Beyond global leaders, the GII 2025 results highlight a diverse group of regional champions driving collaboration and connectivity in their respective regions.

In Europe, universities in the Netherlands lead, with Maastricht University ranking among the world’s top performers (Table 1), showing the Netherlands’ strong activities in open innovation and cross-border collaboration contributing to Europe’s scientific outcomes. In Northern America, the United States leads with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (Table 1) reflecting the US’ enduring ability to combine frontier research with deep industry ties and technology transfer capacity. Qatar University tops in Qatar (18th) and in Northern Africa and Western Asia, while the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa (24th) emerges as Sub-Saharan Africa’s strongest performer in industry collaboration and international research networks. Universities in Iran (35th) lead in Central and Southern Asia, with Amirkabir University of Technology leading thanks to its robust base in applied sciences and engineering and its increasing emphasis on research commercialization.

Finally, in Latin America and the Caribbean, Brazil leads the region, ranking 38th. Its top-performing university – the University of São Paulo contributed to the city’s entry into the global top 50 innovation clusters for the first time — an important milestone for the region (see Clusters ranking).

Universities as Anchors of National and Regional Innovation

Across all income levels, universities play a pivotal role in strengthening innovation linkages. They connect research with markets, talent with opportunity, and local ideas with global networks. As governments continue to promote collaboration between academia and business, data from the GII and THE-WUR together provide a more comprehensive understanding of how these linkages support innovation-led development.

Background

The Global Innovation Index includes a Business Sophistication pillar, which assesses how firms and other actors enable innovation activity. Within this pillar, Sub-pillar 5.2 on Innovation Linkages focuses on collaboration between the public and private sectors and academia — the collaborative backbone of innovative ecosystems.

A new indicator introduced in the GII 2025, University industry and international engagement, top 5 (indicator 5.2.3), captures how universities interact with businesses and international partners. It uses data from the THE World University Rankings to assess two dimensions of innovation linkages: industry engagement and international outlook.

To construct this indicator, the GII uses the average of two scores - industry engagement and international outlook, for the top five universities in each economy. The industry engagement score reflects industry income and patent citations, while the international outlook score accounts for the proportions of international staff, international students, and co-authored research publications. Together, these metrics offer a comparative lens on how universities around the world foster connectivity and collaboration in support of innovation.