Clarivate Analytics
A global information-services and analytics brand serving scientific research, intellectual property, academia, life sciences, and public-sector organizations.
Last updated August 28, 2026
Overview
Clarivate Analytics, now commonly branded simply as Clarivate, is a global information-services company whose products help organizations discover, evaluate, organize, and commercialize knowledge. Its best-known activities are associated with scientific and scholarly research, but the business also serves intellectual-property professionals, pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, universities, libraries, government agencies, and corporate research teams. The business was created in 2016 when Thomson Reuters separated its Intellectual Property & Science division. That division contained established information assets including Web of Science, Derwent Innovation, Cortellis, EndNote, and Journal Citation Reports. The separated company was acquired by investment firms Onex Corporation and Baring Private Equity Asia and developed under the Clarivate Analytics name. In 2019, Clarivate entered into an agreement to become a public company through a merger with Churchill Capital Corp III, a special-purpose acquisition company. The transaction closed in 2020, and the combined company began trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the symbol CLVT. Clarivate's research portfolio is centered on citation and bibliographic intelligence. Web of Science provides access to curated scholarly literature and citation links; Journal Citation Reports supplies journal-level metrics; and Essential Science Indicators supports analysis of highly cited research, research influence, and field performance. These products are used in literature discovery, institutional assessment, funding analysis, research strategy, and the study of scholarly impact. Clarivate also publishes the annual list of Highly Cited Researchers, based on citation data and methodological criteria. A second major business area concerns intellectual property and innovation. Derwent World Patents Index and related tools help users search, normalize, classify, and analyze patent information. Clarivate's solutions are used by patent attorneys, technology-transfer offices, corporate innovation teams, and research organizations to assess novelty, monitor competitors, identify technology trends, and manage patent portfolios. Its life-sciences information products, including Cortellis, support drug discovery, clinical development, regulatory monitoring, and commercial intelligence. Clarivate expanded its presence in academic software and library technology through acquisitions including ProQuest, Ex Libris, Innovative, and related businesses. These assets broadened the company from a publisher-independent information provider into a supplier of research workflows, library-management systems, discovery tools, digital-content services, and institutional analytics. EndNote and RefWorks address reference management, while Ex Libris products such as Alma and Primo are used by academic and research libraries. The company positions itself around trusted data, curated content, analytics, and workflow integration rather than around consumer-facing media. Its competitive differentiation rests on large proprietary databases, editorial and indexing processes, citation-linking infrastructure, patent normalization, domain-specific taxonomies, and long-running relationships with universities, publishers, research institutions, and enterprises. Clarivate's products are generally sold through institutional, enterprise, subscription, and software-as-a-service arrangements. Clarivate remains an active international public company. Its scope is broader than the original Web of Science business, although scholarly research intelligence continues to be one of its most recognizable areas. Because the company has undergone significant portfolio changes and operates through multiple product brands, individual offerings may be marketed under Clarivate, ProQuest, Ex Libris, Derwent, Cortellis, EndNote, or other established names.
History
Clarivate's roots lie in information businesses developed by Thomson Reuters and, before that, by legacy Thomson Scientific, Reuters, and other acquired information companies. These operations assembled specialized databases for scholarly publishing, citation analysis, patents, pharmaceuticals, and research evaluation. Their products were designed for institutional and professional users rather than general consumers, with value derived from editorial curation, structured metadata, historical archives, and analytical tools. In 2016, Thomson Reuters separated its Intellectual Property & Science division. The transaction transferred a portfolio that included Web of Science, Derwent patent information, Cortellis life-sciences intelligence, EndNote, and other research products to a new standalone company backed by Onex Corporation and Baring Private Equity Asia. The company adopted the Clarivate Analytics name. The separation gave the business a more focused identity and allowed it to pursue acquisitions and product development independently of Thomson Reuters' remaining news, legal, tax, and financial-information operations. Clarivate's early standalone strategy centered on combining authoritative content with analytics. Web of Science remained the central scholarly-research platform, while Journal Citation Reports and Essential Science Indicators supported evaluation of journals, researchers, institutions, and research fields. In intellectual property, Derwent products supplied cleaned and enriched patent records intended to make international patent information easier to search and compare. Cortellis addressed the complex information requirements of pharmaceutical and biotechnology organizations, including pipelines, clinical trials, regulatory developments, and market intelligence. The company pursued a public listing through a business-combination agreement with Churchill Capital Corp III announced in 2019. The transaction closed in 2020, and the company began trading on the New York Stock Exchange as Clarivate Plc under CLVT. This transition changed the company's reporting and governance environment while preserving Clarivate as the principal commercial brand for its information and analytics activities. After listing, Clarivate enlarged its academic and library footprint. The acquisition of ProQuest in 2021 brought a large collection of scholarly content, dissertations, archival materials, library services, and research workflows. ProQuest's Ex Libris business added widely used library-management and discovery platforms, including Alma and Primo, while other acquired assets strengthened Clarivate's role in library technology and institutional research infrastructure. Clarivate also retained and developed specialist brands such as EndNote, RefWorks, Derwent, Cortellis, and Web of Science rather than replacing every product with a single consumer-facing identity. The company has also emphasized data integration and analytics across research and innovation workflows. Its products can support literature discovery, citation analysis, research assessment, funding and collaboration analysis, patent landscaping, technology-transfer decisions, pharmaceutical intelligence, reference management, and library operations. This broad scope gives Clarivate exposure to universities, government research agencies, publishers, hospitals, corporations, law firms, pharmaceutical companies, and libraries. Clarivate's history has therefore been shaped by corporate separation, public-market formation, and portfolio expansion. Its present identity is that of a specialized global information-services group built around trusted content and analytical infrastructure. The Web of Science franchise remains its most visible scholarly offering, while the broader portfolio reaches from academic libraries and reference management to patents, life sciences, and commercial research strategy.
- 2023Chief executive transition
Jonathan Gear succeeded Jerre Stead as chief executive officer.
- 2021ProQuest acquisition completed
Clarivate completed its acquisition of ProQuest, adding substantial scholarly-content, library, dissertation, and research-workflow capabilities.
- 2020Public listing on the New York Stock Exchange
The Churchill Capital Corp III transaction closed and Clarivate began trading on the NYSE under the symbol CLVT.
- 2019Agreement to combine with Churchill Capital Corp III
Clarivate announced a transaction intended to convert the private company into a publicly traded business through a merger with Churchill Capital Corp III.
- 2016Clarivate Analytics is established
Thomson Reuters completed the sale of its Intellectual Property & Science division to Onex and Baring Private Equity Asia, creating Clarivate Analytics as an independent company.
Products and positioning
Clarivate positions itself as a provider of trusted data, analytics, and workflow software for research, intellectual property, life sciences, and academic institutions. Its value proposition combines curated content, proprietary databases, citation and patent intelligence, and tools that support decisions across the research and innovation lifecycle.
Web of ScienceScholarly research database and citation index
Web of Science is Clarivate's flagship research-discovery and citation-indexing platform. It provides structured access to scholarly literature and citation relationships across selected journals, conference proceedings, books, and other research sources. Universities, publishers, funders, government agencies, and corporations use it for literature discovery, citation analysis, collaboration studies, research evaluation, and strategic planning. Its value depends on curated coverage, normalized metadata, historical citation links, and tools that allow users to examine research influence across disciplines.
Journal Citation ReportsJournal analytics
Journal Citation Reports provides journal-level indicators and descriptive information derived from citation data. It is used by researchers, librarians, publishers, and research managers to compare journals, understand citation patterns, and support collection and publication decisions. The product is associated with the Journal Impact Factor and a wider set of journal metrics, although Clarivate presents the indicators as analytical tools that require contextual interpretation rather than as a single universal measure of quality.
Essential Science IndicatorsResearch-performance analytics
Essential Science Indicators supports analysis of research performance, citation influence, emerging areas, highly cited papers, and institutional or national output. It is used by research administrators, policymakers, funders, and strategy teams to benchmark performance across fields and identify influential work. The service complements Web of Science by presenting citation-based indicators in a more analytical and comparative format.
Derwent World Patents IndexPatent information
Derwent World Patents Index is a structured patent-information resource designed to improve the discovery and comparison of inventions across jurisdictions. Derwent editorial processes enrich patent records with standardized titles, abstracts, classifications, and related information. Patent professionals, corporate research teams, technology-transfer offices, and law firms use the data for prior-art research, competitive intelligence, portfolio review, freedom-to-operate analysis, and technology landscaping.
CortellisLife-sciences intelligence
Cortellis is Clarivate's family of life-sciences intelligence products. It covers areas such as drug pipelines, clinical trials, regulatory developments, companies, deals, patents, and commercial information. Pharmaceutical and biotechnology organizations use Cortellis to monitor competitors, evaluate assets, track development programs, support licensing and business-development work, and inform research and commercial strategy.
EndNoteReference-management software
EndNote is reference-management software used to collect, organize, annotate, and cite scholarly sources. It supports research workflows by helping users build bibliographies, manage reference libraries, and format citations for different publication styles. The product has long been associated with individual researchers, graduate students, academic departments, and institutions.
ProQuestAcademic content and research services
ProQuest provides academic and research content, including dissertations, theses, newspapers, archival material, ebooks, databases, and discovery services. Within Clarivate, the ProQuest portfolio extends access to research materials and supports library acquisition, discovery, digitization, and institutional research workflows.
Ex Libris AlmaLibrary-management system
Alma is a cloud-based library-management platform associated with Clarivate's Ex Libris business. It helps academic and research libraries manage print, electronic, and digital resources, acquisitions, cataloging, fulfillment, and related operational workflows. Its role is to provide a shared management environment for complex library collections and services.
Flagship businesses
- Web of Science
- Journal Citation Reports
- Derwent World Patents Index
- Cortellis
- ProQuest
- Ex Libris Alma
Marketing campaigns
- Highly Cited Researchers
Global
Clarivate publishes the annual Highly Cited Researchers recognition program using citation data and field-specific methodology to identify researchers whose publications have demonstrated substantial influence.
Outcome. The program has become a prominent research-recognition and communications initiative associated with the Web of Science and Clarivate research-intelligence portfolio.
Brand decisions
- 2021Acquire ProQuestM&A
Clarivate aimed to expand beyond bibliographic and citation products into academic content, library services, and research workflows.
What changed. Clarivate completed the acquisition of ProQuest and its related academic and library businesses.
Aftermath. The acquisition broadened Clarivate's portfolio through ProQuest content, Ex Libris library platforms, and additional institutional research capabilities.
- 2019Pursue a public listing through Churchill Capital Corp IIIM&A
Clarivate sought access to public capital markets while remaining focused on information and analytics businesses.
What changed. The company agreed to combine with Churchill Capital Corp III, a special-purpose acquisition company.
Aftermath. The transaction closed in 2020 and Clarivate became listed on the New York Stock Exchange under CLVT.
- 2016Separate the Thomson Reuters Intellectual Property & Science divisionM&A
Thomson Reuters decided to sell its Intellectual Property & Science operations as part of a broader portfolio strategy.
What changed. Onex and Baring Private Equity Asia acquired the division and established it as Clarivate Analytics.
Aftermath. The transaction created an independent specialist information-services company centered on research, patent, and life-sciences intelligence.
Leadership
| Name | Title | Tenure |
|---|---|---|
| Jonathan Gear | Chief Executive Officerformer | 2023–2024 |
| Jerre Stead | Executive Chairman and Chief Executive Officerformer | 2017–2023 |
Recent events
- 2023Clarivate announces leadership transition
Clarivate announced that Jonathan Gear would succeed Jerre Stead as chief executive officer, marking a leadership transition after the company's public-market expansion and acquisition period.
Leadership change - 2021Clarivate completes acquisition of ProQuest
Clarivate completed its acquisition of ProQuest, expanding its academic, library, dissertation, research-content, and workflow portfolio.
M&A - 2020Clarivate begins trading on the New York Stock Exchange
The combination with Churchill Capital Corp III closed, and Clarivate became a publicly traded company under the ticker CLVT.
M&AOther - 2019Clarivate agrees to become a public company through Churchill Capital Corp III merger
Clarivate announced an agreement to combine with Churchill Capital Corp III in a transaction designed to take the company public.
M&A - 2016Clarivate is formed from Thomson Reuters' Intellectual Property & Science business
Thomson Reuters completed the sale of its Intellectual Property & Science business to Onex and Baring Private Equity Asia, creating the standalone Clarivate Analytics company.
M&A
Sources
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