SEOUL-- June 10, 2022 -- The World’s Universities with Real Impact (WURI) ranking 2022, which seeks to assess the innovativeness of universities for the future, was presented on June 9, 2022, at 3:00 pm (CET)/10:00 pm (KST) in both Switzerland and South Korea.

This ranking for innovative universities is designed to highlight and appreciate the efforts of universities to produce a future workforce aligning with the growing demands among entrepreneurs in contemporary society.

This ranking of innovative universities is organized by the Institute for Policy and Strategy on National Competitiveness (IPSNC), and sponsored by four other organizations including Tailor Institute of Franklin University (FUS) from Lugano, Switzerland, Hanseatic League of Universities (HLU) with 120+ member universities of the world, the Institute for Industrial Policy Studies (IPS) from Seoul, South Korea, UN and the Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR) from Geneva, Switzerland, and. The first WURI conference was held in June 2020 via Zoom by IPSNC.

This event announced the top 100 universities for the WURI ranking, the so-called “Global Top 100.” Alongside there was also the unveiling of the top 50 universities in each of the six criteria: Industrial Application, Entrepreneurial Spirit, Ethical Value, Student Mobility and Openness, Crisis Management, and Fourth Industrial Revolution. What is special about the WURI ranking is that it adds a new criterion every year. This year, the new criterion is the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which evaluates to what extent universities are effectively and flexibly coping with the accelerated implementation of high technology (e.g., Artificial Intelligence), as well as how they are incorporating the application of such high technology in education.

For the “Global Top 100,” Minerva University and Arizona State University ranked in the first and the second place, respectively. The next places were taken by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (3rd), Stanford University (4th), and University of Pennsylvania (5th). Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Aalto University, Ecole 42, California Institute of Technology, and Harvard University were also ranked in the Top 10.

Looking at the regional distribution of the “Global Top 100,” 31 universities were from North America, 36 were from Asia, 26 were from Europe, 5 were from Oceania, and 2 were from Africa and South America. Speaking of the country distributions, 29 were the US, 9 were Korean, 7 were Chinese, and 5 were Australian universities.

As there are many innovative cases presented by these universities, in addition to those ranked in “Global Top 100,” the universities in the rank between 101~200 and 201~300 were also presented without indicating their rankings.

In the criterion of Industrial Application, Minerva University was ranked in the first place, followed by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (2nd), Arizona State University (3rd), California Institute of Technology (4th), and Stanford University (5th). In this category, universities from the United States (US) took all Top 5 spots.

In the criterion of Entrepreneurial Spirit, Simon Fraser University was ranked first, followed by Deggendorf Institute of Technology (2nd), Hanze University of Applied Sciences (3rd), Aalto University (4th), and University of California, Berkeley (5th). In this category, European universities showed a strong performance.

In Ethical Value, Ecole 42 was ranked first, followed by the Franklin University Switzerland (2nd), University of Pennsylvania (3rd), Harvard University (4th), and Florida State University (5th). In this category, universities from the US and Europe dominated the Top 5.

In Student Mobility and Openness, Boston University ranked first, followed by Abdullah Gul University (2nd), National University of Singapore (3rd), Seoul National University (4th), and Peking University (5th). The performance of Asian Universities was distinguished in this category.

In Crisis Management, Burapha University took the first place, followed by the Abdullah Gul University (2nd), Florida Gulf Coast University (3rd), Franklin University Switzerland (4th), and Afeka - Tel-Aviv Academic College of Engineering (5th). The universities from developing countries particularly showed strong performance in this category.

In Fourth Industrial Revolution, the criterion newly added in this year’s ranking, Samar State University, the Philippines, was ranked first, followed by National University of Management, Cambodia (2nd), Lac Hong University, Vietnam (3rd), Mariano Marcos State University, the Philippines (4th), and Dalian Neusoft University of Information, China (5th). In this criterion, the innovativeness and the ability of universities from developing countries to adapt to the rapidly changing educational environments were highlighted.

The congratulatory remarks were provided by Henk Pijlman, the Founding President of the Hanseatic League of Universities, Mihoko Kumamoto, the Director of Division for Prosperity at UNITAR, and Greg Warden, the President of Franklin University Switzerland. Dong-sung Cho, the second President of the HLU and Chairman of IPS, delivered the keynote speech. The presentation was given by the Chairman of IPSNC and Professor Emeritus of Seoul National University, Hwy-chang Moon, on the key ranking and highlights of the WURI Ranking 2022.