HEC Montréal tops global innovative universities
World University Rankings for Innovation (WURI)
July 4, 2024
The School has proudly made it into in the Top 100 by categories of the World University Rankings for Innovation (WURI) and it has achieved the following distinctions:
- 1st place in the Entrepreneurial Spirit category for the SEED/IDEOS hub projects
- 36thplace in the Industrial Application category for User Experience (UX)/Tech3Lab
Luciano Barin Cruz, Professor, Director and Co-founder of the IDEOS hub expressed his pride:
“I am extremely proud that our project was ranked first in the world, out of several major universities. This is a remarkable recognition for projects we have carried out in Sri Lanka, Tunisia, Colombia and Haiti, and it motivates us to expand our projects to several new countries such as Senegal and Benin. This is a great partnership involving the IDEOS hub at HEC Montréal, Desjardins International Development (DID) and several other academic, funding and local partners.”
For his part, Pierre-Majorique Léger, Professor and Co-director of Tech3Lab, highlighted the significance of the ranking:
“Thanks to its 36th position, Tech3Lab, the world’s largest public user experience laboratory, lets HEC Montréal stand out as the only business school in the top 50 of this ranking, while occupying first place in Canada.”
Ranking criteria and categories
WURI was launched in 2020 by a consortium of universities, and it assesses and ranks universities based on their ability to innovate. This global ranking is renowned for placing emphasis on three criteria:
- Innovation: the innovativeness of the content of the program itself or the process the institution has demonstrated in making its program more effective.
- Implementability: the costs and benefits of its implementation.
- Impact: the scope and intensity of its influence.
This year, the university programs that were submitted competed in one or more of the following 13 categories that were taken into consideration by the ranking: Student Support and Engagement, Student Mobility and Openness, Industrial Application, Entrepreneurial Spirit, Crisis Management, Social Responsibility, Generative AI Application, Support for Global Resilience, Leadership, Funding, Infrastructure/Technology, Symbol/Promotion, Culture/Values.
The “Industrial Application” category in which HEC Montréal’s Tech3Lab has left its mark, emphasizes the application of industrial-related education and research to generate tangible impacts, diverging from the conventional focus on academia-driven research and education.
The SEED/IDEOS hub projects from HEC Montréal dominated the “Entrepreneurial Spirit” category, which encompasses a range of elements and initiatives that collectively foster an environment conducive to entrepreneurship and innovation.
These two accomplishments which illustrate HEC Montréal's commitment to innovation, offer a glimpse of promising prospects for continuing to excel on the international stage in future editions.