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Top 100 most innovative universities in Europe 2018

These are the top 100 most innovative universities in Europe according to Reuters’ 2018 innovation ranking

Seeta Bhardwa's avatar

Seeta Bhardwa

Editor, THE Student

Published on May 3 2018

Last updated September 12 2023

Top 100 most innovative universities in Europe

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KU Leuven in Belgium has taken the crown as the most innovative university in Europe for the third year running, in Reuters’ latest innovation ranking. 

The ranks institutions across the continent that are doing the most to advance science, to invent new technologies and to boost new markets and industries. 

Two universities from the UK enter the top five in second and third place (University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in Germany rounds out the top five in fifth place. 

This year’s ranking shows that universities in smaller countries are perhaps demonstrating greater levels of innovation than those in the larger countries. For example, Belgium has seven universities in the ranking, but has a population of 11 million people. In contrast, Russia is the most populous country in Europe but no Russian universities made it into the top 100. 

To compile the ranking, Clarivate Analytics identified the 600 global organisations that published the most articles in academic journals. This list was then reduced to institutions that filed at least 50 patents with the World Intellectual Property Organisation between 2011 and 2016. Each of these institutions were then evaluated on 10 different metrics focused on academic papers and patent filings and ranked accordingly. The full methodology can be found . 


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Top 100 most innovative universities in Europe

2018 Innovation Ranking University Country
KU Leuven Belgium
Imperial College London United Kingdom
University of Cambridge United Kingdom
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne Switzerland
University of Erlangen-Nuremberg Germany
Technical University of Munich Germany
University of Manchester United Kingdom
LMU Munich Germany
Technical University of Denmark Denmark
ETH Zurich - Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Switzerland
UCL United Kingdom
Delft University of Technology Netherlands
University of Zurich Switzerland
University of Oxford United Kingdom
University of Basel Switzerland
Montpellier University France
Leiden University Netherlands
Pierre and Marie Curie University France
Paris Descartes University France
Heidelberg University Germany
Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz Germany
Free University of Berlin Germany
Eindhoven University of Technology Netherlands
University of Freiburg Germany
Paris-Sud University France
Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin  Germany
Humboldt University of Berlin Germany
Grenoble Alpes University France
TU Dresden Germany
University of Bordeaux France
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology Germany
University of Oslo Norway
Ghent University Belgium
University of Birmingham United Kingdom
Claude Bernard University Lyon 1 France
University of Glasgow United Kingdom
Queen Mary University of London United Kingdom
King's College London United Kingdom
Technical University of Berlin Germany
RWTH Aachen University Germany
University of Strasbourg France
Université Libre de Bruxelles Belgium
University of Copenhagen Denmark
Polytechnic University of Milan Italy
University of Edinburgh United Kingdom
Grenoble Institute of Technology France
Vrije Universiteit Brussel Belgium
Utrecht University Netherlands
École Polytechnique France
Goethe University Frankfurt Germany
Paris Diderot University - Paris 7 France
University of Munster - School of Business and Economics Germany
Cardiff University United Kingdom
Université Catholique de Louvain Belgium
Hannover Medical School Germany
Erasmus University Rotterdam Netherlands
University of Amsterdam Netherlands
University of Dundee United Kingdom
Aix-Marseille University France
University of Leicester United Kingdom
Saarland University Germany
University of Sheffield United Kingdom
University of Tübingen Germany
Vienna University of Technology Austria 
Trinity College Dublin Ireland
University of Milan Italy
Federal University of Toulouse Midi-Pyrénées France
University of Leeds United Kingdom
University of Barcelona Spain
University of Southampton United Kingdom
University of Stuttgart Germany
University of Würzburg Germany
University of Lorraine France
University of Geneva Switzerland
University of Twente Netherlands
University of Lille 1 France
Newcastle University United Kingdom
University of Groningen Netherlands
University of Nantes France
University of Nottingham United Kingdom
Sapienza University of Rome Italy
University of Rennes 1 France
University of St Andrews United Kingdom
Aarhus University Denmark
University of Surrey United Kingdom
University of Liège Belgium
Polytechnic University of Catalonia Spain
Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena Germany
University College Cork Ireland
Jagiellonian University Poland
Aalto University Finland
University of Bonn Germany
University of Barcelona Spain
Maastricht University  Netherlands
Technical University of Darmstadt Germany
University of Antwerp Belgium
University of Nice Sophia Antipolis France
University of Warwick United Kingdom
Polytechnic University of Valencia Spain
University of Valencia Spain

Read more: Top 100 most innovative universities in the world  


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