University rankings and news

Harvard, Stanford and Cal.Tech top the list. Of the top ten, only Oxford and Cambridge in England spoil the hegemony of the United States but Sweden and Norway can be relatively happy with their rankings.

That is, if one is to believe the 2003 survey and evaluation of over 2000 universities made by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University Institute of Higher Education.

In a list of the top 500, Sweden comes out best with Stockholm's Karolinska Institute in 5th place in Europe and 39th in the world. The world rankings of other Scandinavian universities are: Uppsala - 39, Oslo - 63, Copenhagen - 65, and Helsinki - 74.

The methodology appears to be weighted towards the scientific and technical with such criteria as the number of Nobel Laureates (excluding literature), and the number of articles printed in `Nature' and `Science'.

Stockholm may be ahead in this list but Oslo University has recently taken the initiative to establish a unit that could have the potential to develop improvements both in and outside the University.

`Birkeland Innovation' is the name of the new Technology Transfer Office at the University. This office is responsible for stimulating and fostering innovative research and for administering commercial applications and patents. The basic idea, based on similar initiatives at American universities, is to bring together the three main elements of the innovative process: Inventors and researchers, entrepreneurs, and investors.

The disparity between `town' and `gown' is not new but Norway has a particularly poor track record - from paper clips to `Jiffy Pots' - of developing ideas into products.

The name `Birkeland' refers to Professor Kristian Birkeland whose research and patents were essential to the founding of Norsk Hydro, the largest industrial company in Norway. Sam Eyde was the entrepreneur and one of the main investors was Sweden's Marcus Wallenberg.

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