KU Leuven, Imperial College London and the University of Cambridge lead the inaugural Reuters Top 100: Europe’s Most Innovative Universities ranking, launched yesterday.

The Reuters Top 100 aims to identify which institutions contribute the most to science and technology, and have the greatest impact on the global economy. The ranking uses proprietary data and analysis tools from the Intellectual Property & Science division of Thomson Reuters to examine a series of patent and research-related metrics, and get to the essence of what it means to be truly ‘innovative’.

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, building a methodology that employs 10 different metrics. 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. Finally, they trimmed the list so that it only included European universities, and then ranked them based on their performance.

The most innovative university in Europe is KU Leuven, a Dutch-speaking school based in Belgium’s Flanders region, which maintains one of the largest independent research and development organisations on the planet. KU Leuven earned its first place rank, in part, by putting out a high volume of influential inventions. Its researchers submit more patents than almost any other university in Europe, and outside researchers frequently cite KU Leuven inventions in their own patent applications.

Other key findings of the Reuters Top 100: Europe’s Most Innovative Universities ranking include the strong performance of universities in Western Europe, with 60 universities making it to the Top 100. Northern Europe comes in a distant second, with 24; while Southern Europe has 15. Eastern Europe only has a single university featured in the list, Poland’s Jagiellonian University, ranked 92. German universities account for 24 of the 100 most innovative universities in Europe, more than any other country, while the United Kingdom comes in second with 17 institutions making it to the list.

Here are the Top 50 most innovative universities in Europe, according to the recently published Reuters Top 100 list:

1. KU Leuven – Belgium

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2. Imperial College London – England

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3. University of Cambridge – England

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4. École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne – Switzerland

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5. Technical University of Munich – Germany

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6. University of Erlangen Nuremberg – Germany

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7. Delft University of Technology – Netherlands

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8. University of Oxford – England

english 1

9. University of Munich – Germany

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10. University of Zurich – Switzerland

swiss 0

11. University of Copenhagen – Denmark

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12. Technical University of Denmark – Denmark

danishflag 0

13. Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich – Switzerland

swiss 1

14. Pierre & Marie Curie University – France

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15. University of Paris Sud – France

french 0

16. Eindhoven University of Technology – Netherlands

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17. University of Manchester – England

english 2

18. University of Dundee – Scotland

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19. Free University of Berlin – Germany

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20. Dresden University of Technology – Germany

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21. Université Libre Brussels – Belgium

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22. Ghent University – Belgium

belgium 1

23. Université de Montpellier – France

french 1

24. University of Freiburg – Germany

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25. L’Université Paris Descartes – France

french 2

26. Erasmus University Rotterdam – Netherlands

netherlandsflag 1

27. Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1 – France

french 3

28. University of Strasbourg – France

french 4

29. Universität Heidelberg – Germany

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30. University of London – England

english 3

31. Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin – Germany

german flag 6

32. University of Edinburgh – Scotland

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33. University of Basel – Switzerland

swiss 2

34. Aix-Marseille Université – France

french 5

35. Université Grenoble Alpes – France

french 6

36. Charité Universitätsmedizin Berlin – Germany

german flag 7

37. Université Paris Diderot – France

french 7

38. Leiden University – Netherlands

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39. Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble – France

french 8

40. Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz – Germany

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41. University of Oslo – Norway

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42. Politecnico di Milano – Italy

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43. Ecole Polytechnique – France

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44. Karlsruhe Institute of Technology – Germany

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45. Cardiff University – Wales

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46. Universität des Saarlandes – Germany

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47. University of Utrecht – Netherlands

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48. Trinity College Dublin – Ireland

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49. Université Toulouse III – Paul Sabatier – France

french 10

50. Vrije Universiteit Brussel – Belgium

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To read the full list of Reuters Top 100 Most Innovative Universities in Europe, including a detailed methodology and profiles of the universities, visit www.reuters.com/most-innovative-universities-europe.

Image via Flickr.

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