The 12 most innovative universities in the world

US universities continue to stand out as the most innovative in the world, according to Reuters' third-annual ranking of the 100 most innovative colleges.

Eight of the top 10 on the newly released 2017 list- and 38 of the top 50 - are located in the US.

Nine of the schools from last year's top 10 are there again (Northwestern University dropped from 10 to 13, and Vanderbilt jumped up to the tenth slot).

Reuters compiled its rankings by comparing factors like the number of research papers published and how many patent filings a school made in the last year. The full methodology is available on Reuters' website.

Here are the 12 most innovative schools according to Reuters.