MOVING ON UP

Texas rises through the ranks of most innovative states, says new report

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The Lone Star State has again taken a step up on an annual report that ranks the most and least innovative states in the country — this time cracking the top 15.

Texas ranked No. 15 in personal finance site WalletHub's 2023’s Most and Least Innovative States ranking. It's a steady improvement for the state, which ranked No. 16 in 2022 and No. 17 in 2021.

The report analyzed the 50 states and the District of Columbia and how each performed across 22 key metrics, including population of STEM professionals, venture capital investment activity, number of technology companies, patents per capita, and more. The data was pulled from the U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, National Science Foundation, National Center for Education Statistics, United States Patent and Trademark Office, and other records.

Here's how Texas performed at a glance:

No. 18 – for share of STEM professionals
No. 16 – for projected STEM job demand by 2030
No. 25 – for eighth grade math and science performance
No. 21 – for share of science and engineering graduates aged 25 or older
No. 13 – for share of technology companies
No. 31 – for R&D spending per capita
No. 18 – venture capital funding per capita

For the 11th year, Texas won Site Selection Magazine's Governor's Cup, the governor's office announced earlier this year. The award, which Texas has won 19 times since its inception in 1978, recognizes the nation’s top-performing state for job-creating business relocations and expansions.

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global ranking news

3 Texas universities declared best in the world in new report

UT Austin/Facebook

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Three innovative Texas universities are soaring toward the top of the class worldwide. The Center for World University Rankings (CWUR) has ranked the University of Texas at Austin, UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas, and Texas A&M College Station among the top 100 on its prestigious Global 2000 list for 2026.

Each year, CWUR grades more than 21,000 universities around the world based on four factors without relying on surveys and university data submissions: education (25 percent), employability (25 percent), faculty (10 percent), and research (40 percent). For the 2026 edition, 81 million outcome-based data points were analyzed for the rankings, and the schools that placed at the top made the Global 2000 list. A total of 313 universities in the U.S. made the cut.

UT Austin ranked highest on the list as the No. 1 university in Texas, No. 22 in the U.S., and No. 35 worldwide.

Here's how CWUR ranked UT Austin's performance across the four categories:

No. 13 – Faculty rank
No. 66 – Employability rank
No. 72 – Research rank
No. 93 – Education rank

In the past year, U.S. News and World Report, Forbes, and WalletHub, have praised the home of the Longhorns as one of the best universities in America. It's a listmaker's favorite in other global ranking reports, including those that focus on graduate schools. UT has maintained its high-ranking status in these annual rankings even as university leaders face criticism from students for closing and consolidating several programs.

Meanwhile, UT Southwestern ranked No. 2 statewide, No. 35 nationally, and No. 69 globally; and Texas A&M ranked No. 3 statewide, No. 44 nationally, and No. 91 globally.

These are the top 10 best universities in the world for 2026, according to CWUR:

Harvard University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Stanford University
University of Cambridge
University of Oxford
Princeton University
University of Pennsylvania
Columbia University
Yale University
University of Chicago

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