At the forefront in research collaboration with industry and global community

The University of Iceland is among the 25 universities at the forefront internationally in collaboration with industry and international universities worldwide, according to a new evaluation from U-Multirank, an independent ranking body. U-Multirank uses a multidimensional and user-driven approach to international ranking of higher education institutions, and aims at helping students compare universities from across the world.

This is the sixth evaluation published by U-Multirank, prepared with seed funding from the European Commission’s Erasmus+ programme. The work of the U-Multirank consortium is overseen by an Advisory Board. The evaluation comprises 1,711 higher education institutions in 96 countries. There are five dimensions of performance; teaching & learning, research, knowledge transfer, international orientation, and regional engagement. The evaluation is based on data from the institutions themselves, information from international data banks, and student surveys from over 100,000 students in the participating universities.

U-Multirank differs from various other international lists of university performance, as it does not rank the universities by weighted scores to produce a numbered league of table of the world's top universities. The aim is to make transparent the detailed performance and strength in each university's fields of study. The evaluation should enable students to make informed choices about what, or where, to study based on fields of study, ties to industry, and the global community. The U-Multirank thus differs from Times Higher Education - World University Ranking, and the Shanghai list of the world's best universities, but the University of Iceland made both those lists in recent years. 

In addition to the new comparative list, U-Multirank published a list of the top 25 Performers that they consider to excel in ten areas. This includes student mobility, contact to work environment, patents awarded, research publication, cited publications, exchange programmes, co-publications with industrial partners, and international joint publications. The University of Iceland is included in the top 25 performers in the last two categories; co-publications with industrial partners and international joint publications. 

"This is very good news for the University of Iceland. Collaboration with various parties is the key to the University's impact, both on our community and the world at large. The University of Iceland emphasizes both domestic and global collaboration and co-operates with many of the world's leading higher education institutions. The University has, furthermore, placed even greater emphasis in recent years on close collaboration with industry. The U-Multirank listing confirms that the University of Iceland is on the right track in this respect which is very inspiring," says Jón Atli Benediktsson, Rector of the University of Iceland.
The U-Multirank infographics of the top 25 performers in different fields can be found  on their website.