Technological impact factor: An indicator to measure the impact of academic publications on practical innovation

• Technological impact factor (TIF) measures the impact of journal articles on patents.
• Journals with higher TIF values performed diversely in journal impact factor (JIF).
• TIF values were not strongly correlated with JIF values in three selected categories.
• Academic journals may take more time to influence practical innovation.

This study established a technological impact factor (TIF) derived from journal impact factor (JIF), which is proposed to evaluate journals from the aspect of practical innovation. This impact factor mainly examines the influence of journal articles on patents by calculating the number of patents cited to a journal divided by the number of articles published in that particular journal. The values of TIF for five-year (TIF5) and ten-year (TIF10) periods at the journal level and aggregated TIF values (TIFAGG_5 and TIFAGG_10) at the category level were provided and compared to the JIF. The results reveal that journals with higher TIF values showed varied performances in the JCR, while the top ten journals on JIF5 showed consistent good performance in TIFs. Journals in three selected categories – Electrical & Electronic Engineering, Research & Experimental Medicine, and Organic Chemistry – showed that TIF5 and TIF10 values are not strongly correlated with JIF5. Thus, TIFs can provide a new indicator for evaluating journals from the aspect of practical innovation.