From 24-26 September 2024, the world university network for innovation global leaders gathered in
Seoul City, South Korea, to celebrate and recognize the remarkable accomplishments of universities that
have demonstrated outstanding innovation in the 2024 World University Rankings for Innovation known as WURI. The global participants hail from Korea, the Philippines, Türkiye, Romania, Ethiopia, India, Germany, Taiwan, Cambodia, the USA, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Albania, Lebanon, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Singapore and Brunei.
During the opening event, Minerva University was awarded the most innovative, high-ranked university category, and Korean Hankuk University of Foreign Studies was awarded the most innovative projects in the category of high-ranked projects. aSSIST University was the official host for the 2024 WURI Global Conference.
In a joint welcoming message, Jin-Suk Kim, Chair of WGC24 Executive Committee, Kyung-Sung Kim, Chair of WURI 2025, Dong-Sung Cho, Founder of WURI stated that this year’s competition was more intense than ever, with the WURI office evaluating 2, 916 innovative cases submitted by 1,072 universities from across the globe. The distinguished panel of 156 university presidents assessed these submissions on the grounds of innovativeness, feasibility, and impact, making this year’s rankings a true testament to each institution’s commitment to progress and visionary leadership.
In 2018, The Hanseatic League of Universities (HLU) was founded by ten university presidents at Hanze
University of Applied Sciences in Groningen, the Netherlands. They agreed to launch a university
ranking system, which was named “World’s Universities with Real Impact (WURI).
The World University Rankings for Innovation (WURI) assesses the higher education institution’s real
contributions to industry and society, highlighting innovative education, research, and engagement to
society. Using 13 categories, it encompasses innovation targets and methods, offering a comprehensive
measure of institutions’ creative contributions to societal advancement.
The ranking aims to spotlight higher education institutions that excel in these innovative approaches, thereby inspiring advancements across the academic and societal landscape…
The ranking system that values real impact upon industry and society, by valuing start-ups, entrepreneur
efforts, and industrial application.
The ranking system that values social responsibility, ethics, and integrity, rather than focusing only on
knowledge and skills just for the success.
The ranking system that emphasizes the future potential, by accepting ongoing innovative efforts with a
detailed innovative process.
The ranking system that enables mutual learning, by inviting all the participating universities to become the peer evaluator.
The ranking system that guides to effectively innovate, by providing the right innovation target and means, as well as the template for implementing innovation.
The first WURI Ranking was released ONLINE via Zoom on June 11th, 2020. 469 innovative programs from 280 universities were included in the ranking. The top 50 rankings were published in four categories:
Industrial Application, Entrepreneur Spirit, Ethical Values, Student Mobility and Openness. Stanford University (US) was ranked #1 in Global Top Ranking followed by MIT (US), Aalto University (Finland),
Harvard (US), Minerva Schools at Keck Graduate Institute (US). https://www.wuri.world/wuri-ranking-2020
Further information can be accessed at: https://www.wuri.world/
Here are some photos of the conference:
Photos by Bereket Alemayehu, Sept. 24, 2024
