KU Leuven has retained pole position on Reuters’ Top 100 index of innovative European universities for the fourth year running, while Germany's academic sector grabbed the most places of any country.
Katholieke Universiteit (KU) Leuven was on Monday named Europe’s most innovative university for a fourth consecutive year by Reuters’ Top 100 ranking of academic innovation in the continent.
While KU Leuven secured the crown for Belgium’s Flanders region, Germany had the most Top 100 universities of any country, including runner-up University of Erlangen and Technical University of Munich at seventh, with the latter down a position compared with last year.
The UK had the second most institutions on the index, with 21 entrants led by Imperial College London (ICL) in third place. ICL was followed at fourth and fifth respectively by University of Cambridge and Switzerland’s Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne, with all three universities losing a position from last year’s ranking.
University College London and University of Zurich both entered the top 10 for the first time, respectively gaining five and four places to finish in sixth and ninth. University of Manchester fell a place to eight, while Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich maintained its spot in tenth.
Reuters speculated the UK’s overall performance had weakened amid the uncertainty surrounding Brexit, in contrast to the improved standing on average for German and Dutch universities. France had the third most universities in the ranking with 18 schools, followed by the Netherlands with nine, Belgium with seven, and Spain and Switzerland both with five.
The Top 100 index was produced in partnership with information provider Clarivate Analytics according to ten metrics, including patent filings and citations. Candidates for the list comprised the 600 global organisations with the most publications in academic journals, refined by the institutions that had filed at least 50 international patents between 2012 and 2017.
