Abstract: Coal industry as a basic industry is of vital importance to the nation’s economic lifelines and energy security.However,because of the arising of a series of problems during the development of the coal industry in recent years,the healthy growth of the industry has been adversely affected.After making a clear definition of the concept,essential component parts,evaluation index and the index selection principle of the coal industry technical innovation ability,4 key factors,i.e.input,output capacity,innovation result conversion capacity,and support and guarantee ability,are finally selected,which,coupled with 15 additional systematic indexes,makes up the coal industry technical innovation ability evaluation index system.This is aimed to provide,through the application of this system,a scientific basis for policy-making by government department.