European university patenting is highly concentrated geographically, with the majority of patents coming from just five Western European countries. Strikingly, more than 70%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 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% of all university patent applications and 74% 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 intoFollowing 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.
Top 5 European patenting universities (1980–2019)
| Higher Education Institute | Total Value | |
| 1 | The University of Oxford | 1953.207 |
| 2 | University College London | 1782.145 |
| 3 | Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne | 1410.146 |
| 4 | Federal Institute of Technology Zurich | 1225.35 |
| 5 | Imperial College London | 1192.705 |
Source: Own compilation based on the Knowledge Creation and Patenting by European Institutions (KC-HEI) dataset (Parteka et al. 2024).
Notes: Based on data for 866 universities from 31 European countries that generated patent applications to the world’s five largest intellectual property offices, the IP5, between 1980–2019.
Only direct academic patents.
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, RETHINK-GSC’s project head. “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.”
Read study now: “A dataset on knowledge creation and patenting by European Higher Education Institutions (KC-HEI)”
Contacts:
Aleksandra Parteka
Associate Professor
Faculty of Management and Economics
Gdansk University of Technology
aleksandra.parteka@pg.edu.pl
Holger Görg
Director International Trade and Investment
Kiel Institute for the World Economy
T +49 431 8814-258
holger.goerg@ifw-kiel.de
Media Contact:
Melanie Radike
Communications Manager
T +49 431 8814-329
melanie.radike@ifw-kiel.de
