Germany’s LMU Munich receives more industry funding per academic than any other institution in the world, according to Times Higher Education’s new Funding for Innovation ranking.
The university has topped a list of the world’s best 20 institutions based on their ability to secure research money from the private sector. It secured almost $400,000 (£288,500) per academic from businesses in 2013.
The US’ Duke University takes second place, with a figure of almost $290,000, while the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) is third, with $254,700.
Europe dominates the ranking with nine institutions in the top 20, followed by Asia with seven and North America with just two. China is the most-represented nation, with four universities, led by China University of Petroleum (Beijing), which received $227,600 of industry funding per academic, in seventh. Germany, South Korea, Turkey, the Netherlands and the US have two institutions each.
When assessing a country’s overall performance on this measure, Germany is top, with its best five institutions securing an average of $195,800 of industry investment per academic. It is followed by the US ($175,900) and China ($172,100).
The UK is conspicuous by its absence in the university ranking and comes 22nd in the top 30 list of countries – below Turkey, Belgium and Brazil – receiving under $28,000 of industry funding per researcher, based on the figures for its five best-performing institutions. The result comes just a week after THE reported that a survey of more than 18,000 UK academics had found that a dwindling number of scholars were commercialising their research.
[“Source-timeshighereducation”]
