Belgian university KU Leuven has topped the inaugural Reuters Top 100: Europe’s Most Innovative Universities ranking, with Imperial College London and the University of Cambridge completing the top three.
The innovation league table aims to identify which institutions contribute the most to science and technology, and have the greatest impact on the global economy. Its methodology, available on the Reuters site, uses proprietary data and analysis tools from the Intellectual Property and Science division of Thomson Reuters to examine a series of patent and research-related metrics.
It follows on from last year's list of the most innovative universities in the world – a topic that Times Higher Education has also investigated in some depth.
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According to the latest results, the most innovative university in Europe is KU Leuven, a Dutch-speaking school based in Belgium’s Flanders region, that maintains one of the largest independent research and development organisations on the planet. Its researchers submit more patents than almost any other university in Europe.
Universities in Western Europe claim 60 universities of the top 100, with Northern Europe second with 24, Southern Europe boasting 15 and Eastern Europe just one – 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 came second with 17 institutions.
The Reuters top 100 most innovative universities in Europe 2016
| Rank | University | Country |
| 1 | KU Leuven | Belgium |
| 2 | Imperial College London | United Kingdom |
| 3 | University of Cambridge | United Kingdom |
| 4 | École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne | Switzerland |
| 5 | Technical University of Munich | Germany |
| 6 | University of Erlangen-Nuremberg | Germany |
| 7 | Delft University of Technology | The Netherlands |
| 8 | University of Oxford | United Kingdom |
| 9 | University of Munich | Germany |
| 10 | University of Zurich | Switzerland |
| 11 | University of Copenhagen | Denmark |
| 12 | Technical University of Denmark | Denmark |
| 13 | Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich | Switzerland |
| 14 | Pierre & Marie Curie University - Paris 6 | France |
| 15 | University of Paris Sud - Paris 11 | France |
| 16 | Eindhoven University of Technology | The Netherlands |
| 17 | University of Manchester | United Kingdom |
| 18 | University of Dundee | United Kingdom |
| 19 | Free University of Berlin | Germany |
| 20 | Dresden University of Technology | Germany |
| 21 | University Libre Brussels | Belgium |
| 22 | Ghent University | Belgium |
| 23 | University of Montpellier | France |
| 24 | University of Freiburg | Germany |
| 25 | University of Paris Descartes - Paris 5 | France |
| 26 | Erasmus University Rotterdam | The Netherlands |
| 27 | University of Claude Bernard - Lyon 1 | France |
| 28 | University of Strasbourg | France |
| 29 | Ruprecht Karl University Heidelberg | Germany |
| 30 | University of London | United Kingdom |
| 31 | Humboldt University of Berlin | Germany |
| 32 | University of Edinburgh | United Kingdom |
| 33 | University of Basel | Switzerland |
| 34 | University of Aix-Marseille | France |
| 35 | Grenoble Alpes University | France |
| 36 | Charite Medical University of Berlin | Germany |
| 37 | University of Paris Diderot - Paris VII | France |
| 38 | Leiden University | The Netherlands |
| 39 | Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble | France |
| 40 | Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz | Germany |
| 41 | University of Oslo | Norway |
| 42 | Polytechnic University of Milan | Italy |
| 43 | Ecole Polytechnique | France |
| 44 | Karlsruhe Institute of Technology | Germany |
| 45 | Cardiff University | United Kingdom |
| 46 | Saarland University | Germany |
| 47 | Utrecht University | The Netherlands |
| 48 | Trinity College Dublin | Ireland |
| 49 | University of Paul Sabatier - Toulouse III | France |
| 50 | Vrije University of Brussels | Belgium |
| 51 | University of Amsterdam | The Netherlands |
| 52 | University of Milan | Italy |
| 53 | University of Birmingham | United Kingdom |
| 54 | University of Munster | Germany |
| 55 | Eberhard Karls University of Tubingen | Germany |
| 56 | University of Leeds | United Kingdom |
| 57 | Universite de Bordeaux | France |
| 58 | Aarhus University | Denmark |
| 59 | University of Sheffield | United Kingdom |
| 60 | RWTH Aachen University | Germany |
| 61 | Universite Catholique Louvain | Belgium |
| 62 | Technical University of Berlin | Germany |
| 63 | University of Twente | The Netherlands |
| 64 | University of Stuttgart | Germany |
| 65 | University of Barcelona | Spain |
| 66 | Hannover Medical School | Germany |
| 67 | Vienna University of Technology | Austria |
| 68 | University of Groningen | The Netherlands |
| 69 | University of Kiel | Germany |
| 70 | University of Nottingham | United Kingdom |
| 71 | University of Liege | Belgium |
| 72 | Sapienza University Rome | Italy |
| 73 | University of Loire Bretagne | France |
| 74 | University College Cork | Ireland |
| 75 | Friedrich Schiller University of Jena | Germany |
| 76 | Maastricht University | The Netherlands |
| 77 | University of Southampton | United Kingdom |
| 78 | University of Lorraine | France |
| 79 | University of Bologna | Italy |
| 80 | University of Rennes 1 | France |
| 81 | University of Bristol | United Kingdom |
| 82 | University of St Andrews | United Kingdom |
| 83 | University of Bonn | Germany |
| 84 | University of Warwick | United Kingdom |
| 85 | Polytechnic University of Catalonia | Spain |
| 86 | Autonomous University of Barcelona | Spain |
| 87 | Queen’s University Belfast | United Kingdom |
| 88 | Universitat Politecnica de Valencia | Spain |
| 89 | Darmstadt University of Technology | Germany |
| 90 | University of Hannover | Germany |
| 91 | University of Rostock | Germany |
| 92 | Jagiellonian University | Poland |
| 93 | University of Santiago De Compostela | Spain |
| 94 | University College Dublin | Ireland |
| 95 | University of Valencia | Spain |
| 96 | University of Sevilla | Spain |
| 97 | Polytechnic University of Madrid | Spain |
| 98 | University of Padua | Italy |
| 99 | Complutense University of Madrid | Spain |
| 100 | University of Granada | Spain |
