Innovative power

The University of Freiburg has held its place in Thomson-Reuters’ 2018 ranking of Europe’s 100 most innovative universities. This year, Freiburg was ranked 24, as it was in 2017. Nationally, the university was again in the “top ten” with a ranking of seven. Three of Freiburg’s partners in the grouping Eucor – The European Campus – have also performed well. Basel is ranked 15th, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) is in 31st place, and Strasbourg has been given a ranking of 41, placing them all among Europe’s 100 most innovative universities. “These rankings emphasize Freiburg’s potential into the future as one of the strongest research universities in the world and the performance capability of a European university on the Upper Rhine. With these results comes the responsibility to maintain this level of innovation,” emphasizes University of Freiburg Rector Prof. Dr. Hans-Jochen Schiewer. “The ranking is evidence of the success of our strategy of using training in entrepreneurship and comprehensive coaching opportunities to bring the highly-innovative projects of our researchers and students from concepts to fruition,” says  Vice President for Innovation and Technology Transfer Prof. Dr. Margit Zacharias. The partners in the European Campus together registered 573 patents between 2011 and 2016, the period taken into consideration in the ranking. That figure is greater than the total of patent registrations filed by all of the ranked Spanish or Italian universities.

The ratings of the Canadian media company Thomson-Reuters list universities whose innovations have the greatest impact on scientific and technical progress and have the most influence on the global economy. The evaluation focuses on success in patenting, the number of patent families, and the volume of patents registered. Another assessment criteria for Thomson-Reuters is the amount of scientific publications, which provides information about the research performance of each institution being evaluated. The frequency with which scientists and researchers cite other institutions in patents and publications, as well as cooperation with industry, are also included in the assessment.

Thomson-Reuters Ranking of Europe’s Most Innovative Universities 2018