In our university, some academicians (particularly in engineering sciences) take out patents for their inventions. So, may be number of patents taken by academics can be examined. In addition, university (or high school) students often participate in some science contests. Therefore, the number of students won some awards in science contests with their inventions can be used as a measure.
Patents filed are a good measure. They are lots of academics who write about innovation, review papers on innovation, and the innovation process but they have no innovations to show. So are they innovative? Not really to my mind.