KU Leuven once again tops Reuters ranking of Europe's most innovative universities

How can potential partners, investors, faculty, and students know if an institution is really transforming science and technology and affecting the global economy? To answer that question, Reuters set out to find and rank Europe’s top 100 innovative universities. The criteria focused on academic papers, which indicate basic research performed at a university; and patent filings, which point to an institution’s interest in protecting and commercializing its discoveries. The ranking only pertains to European universities. 

“KU Leuven earned its first-place rank, in part, by producing a high volume of influential inventions,” according to Reuters. “Its researchers submit more patents than most other universities on the continent, and outside researchers frequently cite KU Leuven inventions in their own patent applications.”

According to Reuters, “the same countries that dominate European business and politics dominate the ranking of Europe's Most Innovative Universities. German universities account for 23 of the 100 institutions on the list, more than any other country, and the United Kingdom comes in second, tied with France, each with 17 institutions. But those three countries are also among the most populous and richest countries on the continent. Control for those factors, and it turns out that countries with much smaller populations and modest economies often outperform big ones.” This also applies to Belgium, with six universities in the top 100 and KU Leuven ranking first.

Read the Reuters article here

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