As a core component of the comprehensive strength of colleges and universities, innovation ability is an important basis for the formulation and improvement of educational policies of colleges and universities. This paper takes the scientific evaluation of innovation ability of colleges and universities as the research purpose, analyzes the calculation and standardization method of some colleges and universities’ innovation ability evaluation index data, and selects the shapiro-wilk test method as the screening method of the indexes. By using the quantitative screening method to assist the selection of indicators, it breaks through the limitations of the existing methods that are too subjective. Based on the quantitative screening method, a set of evaluation index system of innovation ability of colleges and universities is initially proposed from four perspectives: input of science and technology foundation, input of science and technology research and development, output of scientific and technological achievements, and effectiveness of science and technology. The gray statistical method is introduced to evaluate the various layers of influence factors of the indicators, so as to further screen the indicators and establish the final evaluation index system of innovation ability of colleges and universities. Meanwhile, it combines the improved CRITIC assignment method with the weighted average method as the method of assigning weights to the indicators. In the form of evaluating the scientific research projects of students in colleges and universities to reflect the overall competence level of the university’s innovation ability, a number of randomly selected groups of 10 scientific research projects of H colleges and universities were rated 75 points and above.
