What does U-multirank tell us about knowledge transfer and research?

The economic and social need to spread knowledge between universities and industry has become increasingly evident in recent years. This paper presents a ranking based partly on research and knowledge transfer indicators from U-multirank data but using data-driven weights. The choice of specific weights and the comparison between ranks remain a sensitive topic. A restricted version of the benefit of the doubt method is implemented to build a new university ranking that includes an endogenous weighting scheme. Furthermore, a novel procedure is presented to compare the principal method with U-multirank. At the best of my knowledge, the U-multirank data set has been unapplied to achieve alternative rankings that include research and knowledge transfers dimensions. A significant result arises from the benefit of the doubt: the highest importance weight is assigned to the co-publications with industrial partners and interdisciplinary publication indicators. This paper fills a bit of the existing gap on the role of co-publications with industrial partners in the university efficiency around the world.