To complile the ranking of Europe's most innovative universities Reuters takes into account criteria such as patents submitted and the number of times external researchers quote these when submitting their own. According to Reuters' sources, the VUB registered 67 basic patents between 2010-2015 of which 37.3% were accepted by the patent office. 46.76% of those had a commercial impact, meaning Reuters considered this as the number of times fundamental research led to commercial and development activities.
Hugo Thienpont, the VUB's Vice Rector for Innovation and Valorisation, was very pleased with the university's achievements. "To be in 48th position in such a competitive list is a great result. I wholeheartedly thank our university's innovation and research community for this accomplishment!"
The list of 100 universities includes six Belgian ones: Ulg, UCL, VUB, ULB, UGent and KULeuven. The latter actually holds the number one slot.
You can find more information on the 'Top 100: Europe's Most Innovative Universities' on the Reuters' website.
I wholeheartedly thank our university's innovation and research community for this accomplishment! - Hugo Thienpont, Vice Rector for innovation and valorisation