No EU Countries among Top Patenting Universities

European university patenting is highly concentrated geographically, with the majority of patents coming from just five Western European countries. Strikingly, more than 70 percent of European universities report no direct patent activity at all. Despite this intense concentration, no university from an EU member state ranks among the world’s top 50 patenting universities, which are dominated by the US and China. This is shown by a RETHINK-GSC study, a European research project led by the Kiel Institute.

“The stark polarisation of university patenting in Europe raises significant concerns. Patents are important instruments for technology transfer and serve as key indicators of the knowledge flowing from universities to the market,” says Aleksandra Parteka, research partner in the RETHINK-GSC project (https://www.ifw-kiel.de/institute/rethinking-global-supply-chains-measurement-impact-and-policy-rethink-gsc/) from Gdansk University of Technology. “To promote economic, social, and political cohesion across Europe, it is essential to ensure that no country or region is left behind in the innovation landscape. However, between 1980 and 2019, universities from just five countries—the UK, Germany, France, Belgium, and Switzerland—accounted for 72 percent of all university patent applications and 74 percent of patents granted.”

“The stark polarisation of university patenting in Europe raises significant concerns. Patents are important instruments for technology transfer and serve as key indicators of the knowledge flowing from universities to the market,” says Aleksandra Parteka, research partner in the RETHINK-GSC project from Gdansk University of Technology. “To promote economic, social, and political cohesion across Europe, it is essential to ensure that no country or region is left behind in the innovation landscape. However, between 1980 and 2019, universities from just five countries—the UK, Germany, France, Belgium, and Switzerland—accounted for 72 percent of all university patent applications and 74 percent of patents granted.”

Despite a steady increase in patent applications from European universities over time, only the University of Oxford and Imperial College London made it into the top 50 world ranking. Following Brexit, no university from an EU member state is included in the ranking anymore.

Among European institutions, three UK and two Swiss universities the way, highlighting the continuing challenges the European Union faces in translating academic research into successful commercial applications.

Globally, universities in the United States and China continue to dominate global patent activity. Of the top 50 patenting universities in the world between 2020 and 2022, 19 are located in the United States and 18 in China.

The analysis uses patenting data from 866 universities across 31 European countries, as recorded in the PATSTAT Global database since 1980, and compares these to over 2,100 European universities that are not actively engaged in direct patenting activity. By analysing data on academic patent applications to track trends over time and incorporating institutional characteristics—such as students and academic staff numbers, geographical information, and financial records—the study offers a comprehensive assessment of the role European universities play in knowledge creation and innovation, as well as factors influencing these processes.

European integration vs. European competitiveness

The study also highlights a critical policy challenge: balancing the need to reduce regional disparities in innovation capacity across the EU, while enabling the continent's leading research universities to compete with the world’s most innovative institutions.

“The absence of EU universities among the top performers is deeply worrying and does not bode well for European competitiveness in the future,” says Holger Görg, project leader of RETHINK-GSC and head of the research group International Trade and Investment at the Kiel Institute. “With trade wars looming both with the US and with China, the EU needs to act quickly and comprehensively: promote research collaboration with the UK after Brexit and support faster commercialisation of university research in Europe by cutting red tape and increasing funding.”

The study was conducted within the framework of RETHINK-GSC, an EU-funded research project led by the Kiel Institute.

About RETHINK-GSC
The project ‘Rethinking Global Supply Chains: Measurement, Impact and Policy’ (RETHINK-GSC) captures the impact of knowledge flows and service inputs in Global Supply Chains (GSCs). Researchers from 11 institutes are applying their broad expertise in a multidisciplinary approach, developing new methodologies, and using innovative techniques to analyse, measure, and quantify the increasing importance of intangibles in global supply chains and to provide new insights into current and expected changes in global production processes.

Read the study here: “A dataset on knowledge creation and patenting by European Higher Education Institutions (KC-HEI)” /https://rethink-gsc.eu/a-dataset-on-knowledge-creation-and-patenting-by-european-higher-education-institutions-kc-hei/

Media Contact:
Melanie Radike
Communications Manager
T +49 176 84 331 777
melanie.radike@ifw-kiel.de

Kiel Institute for the World Economy
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T +49 431 8814-1

www.ifw-kiel.de

Wissenschaftlicher Ansprechpartner:
Aleksandra Parteka
Gdansk University of Technology
aparteka@zie.pg.edu.pl

Prof. Dr. Holger Görg
Kiel Institute for the World Economy
T +49 431 8814-258
holger.goerg@ifw-kiel.de