The profile of Manchester on the Reuters
site refers to the University's impressive
record of establishing more than 100
spin-out companies including Clin-E-Cal,
which has created an interactive app to
aid children with asthma breathe more
easily, and Spectromics, which is developing
an innovative point-of-prescription test
for bacterial infections which guides the
treatment of antibiotics.
The ranking is also based on the number of
citations of papers in patents, to introduce a
quality rather than a volume measure, with
one strategic patenting area, graphene,
which earned the University's discoverers
Andre Geim and Kostya Novoselov the
Nobel Prize for Physics in 2010, referred to
as a major breakthrough.
The University's National Graphene Institute
is now accelerating the process of using the
wonder-material in real-world technologies
such as energy efficient batteries and water
desalination. The University is now building
a Graphene Engineering Innovation Centre.
Clive Rowland, CEO of UMI
3
Ltd,
comments: "The University continues to
promote its long standing commitment
to improving society through innovation,
whether such positive impacts are achieved
by our social enterprises or for commercial
gain through our spin-out company and
technology licensing work. We recognise
that to be an innovative organisation we
need to look for quality as well as volume
with our patenting. It's pleasing to see
that our results focussed approach and
continuous improvement in our way of
working, that we introduced some time
ago, is having an effect as shown by our
upward movement in this index. The
difference between us and those towards
the top of the table, in respect of the
impact measure, is narrowing too."
Manchester's placing on the Reuters
rankings is one of a number of strong
showings in international university league
tables of late. This includes a highest ever
place of 29th in the respected QS World
University Rankings and another all-time
high of 35th in the 'Academic Ranking of
World Universities' table.
The full Reuters ranking is available here.
