There are many different national and international university rankings in the world that rank universities based on different metrics. In previous studies, some educational and research indicators have been investigated, but research and innovation metrics have not yet been compared. The study aimed to compare research performance and innovation-industry indicators in the national and the international university ranking systems based on measured dimensions, data extraction sources, and find a more innovation and research-oriented ranking system than others.

This cross-sectional study has covered the 2019 edition of each ranking website and the data were collected from June through December 2019. The extracted data was updated in January 2021. According to the inclusion criteria, 20 national and international university rankings were selected from 75 ranking systems in different countries. We used thematic method for data analysis.

Among 20 included university rankings in the study, 17 were international, and three national university rankings that all have research performance indicators, and seven are using innovation-industry indicators. Overall, the highest research oriented rankings are CWTS, NTU, U.S News, URAP, Research Excellence Framework; and the highest innovative-industrial oriented rankings are U-Multilink and Scivision. U-Multilink and Scievision are the most research and innovative-industry oriented rankings among others.

The international university rankings are more innovation and research-oriented ranking systems than national ones. So, the national university rankings must introduce new national research and innovation-industry indicators for their universities performance evaluation.