The Catalan Association of Public Universities (ACUP) has presented the report “Indicators of research and innovation in the Catalan public universities 2016”, a publication that has analysed the activity of the Catalan public university system since 2012. The report analyses three aspects: the economic resources that the universities devote to research and innovation (both through competitive and non-competitive funding), the scientific output that derives from it (also in terms of impact and efficiency), and the activity generated in the field of knowledge transfer (evaluated with regard to income from patent licences and innovation agreements with enterprise, or the number of spin-offs, start-ups and university-enterprise chairs).

The 2016 report highlights UPF as the most competitive university both with regard to raising funds and the impact of its scientific output, a position that the University has held since the first edition of the report in 2012.

Figure 1 shows the high competitiveness of UPF researchers in attracting funding (especially in competitive tenders), a figure that has increased over the previous year, rising from 76,000 to 80,000 euros, and more than double the average for the system. A consequence of this success rate, figure 2 shows how 29% of the budget of the University in 2015 came from research, eight percentage points higher than the next university.

Figure 1. Resources harnessed for Research, Development and Innovation by number of doctor teaching and research staff. 2015.

Figure 2. Harnessing of competitive and non-competitive funding per university and % of its total budget. 2015.

With regard to scientific output, the report also shows that the Catalan universities maintain an average of publications per full-time doctor researcher (1.37) higher than the State average (0.80). With regard to its quality, measured through standardized average impact, in the period 2010-2014, four Catalan universities are among the five best in the State in a list topped by UPF, with a standardized average impact of 1.71 (figure 3).

Figure 3. Visualization of the Spanish universities according to impact and scientific output 2010-2014.

Finally, the report also evaluates the position of the system in indicators linked to innovation and knowledge transfer. With a volume of funding from non-competitive funds of approximately €6.9M in 2015. In this field, UPF has improved significantly over the previous year, when it earned €4.4M and where it aims to continue growing in the coming years (figure 4).

Figure 4. Non-competitive funds harnessed by the public Catalan universities and associated entities 2015.

The report was presented by Jaume Casals, UPF rector and president of the ACUP; Arcadi Navarro Secretary for Universities and Research of the Catalan Government; and Jordi Freixenet, vice-rector for Research at the University of Girona.