South Korea has eight schools in the top 100 universities, while Japan has nine – more than all countries bar the United States.
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Policymakers and firms alike depend on universities to transform publicly funded science into information and finally new merchandise that drive financial progress.
In the recent Reuters Top 100 Most Innovative Universities, the survey shows American universities lead the world in producing great innovations.
According to a news release from Reuters, the criteria used in the rankings “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”.
Of course, Reuters placed Stanford at the top of the pack. Located in the heart of California’s Silicon Valley, Stanford has earned a reputation as a hotbed for innovation in computer hardware and software: its faculty and alumni have founded some of the biggest tech companies in the world, including Hewlett-Packard, Yahoo and Google. On the other hand, it is still constructive to distinguish their performance.
MIT first topped the table in 2012 and has remained there ever since, with the ranking having previously been headed by both Harvard and Cambridge.
The most innovative university in Europe, Imperial College London, ranked at No. 11 overall.
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The Institute ranked among the top five institutions worldwide in another five QS disciplines: accounting and finance (2), art and design (4), biological sciences (4), earth and marine sciences (5) and mathematics (4). There’s also strong progress from Singapore’s two leaders, which are now just one place apart; the National University of Singapore (NUS) climbs 10 places to rank 12, while Nanyang Technological University (NTU) rises 26 places to 13. Boston and New York has three universities in the list, while Paris, Sydney, Hong Kong and Beijing have two each. They are the surest bets for anyone seeking to invest in and create real innovation.
