Vanderbilt was named the tenth most innovative university in the world in the annual Reuters Top 100 World’s Most Innovative Universities ranking. The annual rankings, which identify universities advancing science, technology and industry, are based largely on how often patents and research from a university is cited by other researchers around the world.
This is the first year that Vanderbilt has been in the top ten. Last year, Vanderbilt came in at spot 20, but new research out of the university, such as the recently unveiled “smart underwear” and thermo-responsive circuit boards, were cited as a few of the reasons for Vanderbilt’s rise to the top ten. Nine of the 2016 top ten universities remained in the top ten this year, making Vanderbilt the only new university to break into the top spots.
According to Reuters, Vanderbilt researchers filed 218 patents between 2010 and 2015. Of those, 43.1 percent were granted, up from the 34.2 percent success rate in the 2016 ranking. Additionally, the university received a score of 74.7 for commercial impact, which measures how often the university’s research influenced commercial research and development. The average impact score for all of the ranked universities is 48.7.
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