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Innovation Ranking

North Data publishes the most innovative companies and research institutions in Germany every year. The number of registered patents, the number and volume of research projects and also trademark registrations are used to calculate the ranking. All of these key figures are indicators of the innovative strength of large and established companies, which includes the ability to manage research projects, to obtain funding for them, to secure a market position through patents and finally to establish new products on the market, which can be seen in the trademark registrations.

Below we present the winners of the year and the top 50 in the table for the two categories of business and research. Finally, we explain the calculation basis and offer the raw data for free download.

All countries
Germany
France
United Kingdom

Winners

Winners Commercial
2025
Rolls-Royce plc Jaguar Land Rover Ltd. Nicoventures Trading Ltd.
Winners Research
2025
King's College London UNIVERSITY University of Southampton Oxford University Innovation Ltd.

Top 50

Rank Company Patent
applications 		Funded
projects 		Funding
Amount (EUR) 		Trademark
applications 		Score
1
Rolls-Royce plc 264 7 44,990,880 1 78.94
2
Jaguar Land Rover Ltd. 75 5 7,650,249 213 30.66
3
Nicoventures Trading Ltd. 150 0 0 87 29.65
4
Unilever Global IP Ltd. 146 0 0 2 24.98
5
Airbus Operations Ltd. 124 2 1,779,750 0 23.43
6
NPL Management Ltd. 2 27 468,022 0 15.65
7
Imperial Tobacco Ltd. 67 0 0 59 14.19
8
16627225 Ltd. 75 0 0 1 12.83
9
British Telecommunications Ltd. 58 3 243,995 3 11.86
10
Imperial Tobacco Group Ltd. 62 0 0 24 11.69
11
BAE Systems plc 64 1 0 2 11.56
12
Hygeia Harrow Ltd. 61 0 0 10 10.87
13
Compound Semiconductor Applications Catapult Ltd. 1 7 8,963,269 0 10.04
14
Centre for Process Innovation Ltd. 0 14 2,590,780 1 9.55
15
Coopervision International Ltd. 50 0 0 5 8.76
16
Johnson Matthey plc 29 5 1,292,911 3 8.72
17
GKN Aerospace Services Ltd. 1 3 9,475,770 0 8.16
18
Astrazeneca UK Ltd. 0 12 1,445,872 2 7.72
19
Intelligent Energy Ltd. 4 2 8,204,766 1 7.31
20
Sony Interactive Entertainment Europe Ltd. 34 0 0 30 7.20
21
ARM Ltd. 31 1 0 15 6.54
22
Dyson Technology Ltd. 18 0 0 73 6.50
23
Edwards Ltd. 33 1 354,818 0 6.42
24
Micromass UK Ltd. 35 0 0 4 6.15
25
Mclaren Automotive Ltd. 34 0 0 3 5.94
26
J.C. Bamford Excavators Ltd. 29 0 0 10 5.41
27
Genome Research Ltd. 3 8 609,086 0 5.36
28
Ocado Innovation Ltd. 29 0 0 1 4.99
29
Convatec Ltd. 26 0 0 1 4.48
30
Renishaw plc 23 1 0 0 4.48
31
Smith & Nephew plc 25 0 0 1 4.31
32
Evolito Ltd. 4 1 4,307,999 0 4.11
33
Quantum Motion Technologies Ltd. 3 3 2,508,908 0 3.85
34
Optos plc 21 0 0 4 3.77
35
Kohler Mira Ltd. 19 0 0 7 3.57
36
Siemens Mobility Ltd. 11 2 110,881 2 3.15
37
Innospec Ltd. 15 0 0 12 3.12
38
T.J.Smith and Nephew Ltd. 17 0 0 4 3.09
39
Nomad Foods Europe Ltd. 2 0 0 49 2.64
40
Perkins Engines Company Ltd. 15 0 0 1 2.60
41
Pilkington Group Ltd. 13 0 0 7 2.54
42
Alloyed Ltd. 0 3 1,201,014 1 2.51
43
Johnson Matthey Davy Technologies Ltd. 9 1 407,212 0 2.36
44
Haleon UK IP Ltd. 2 0 0 43 2.36
45
Subsea 7 Ltd. 12 0 0 4 2.23
46
Ipsen Biopharm Ltd. 5 0 0 29 2.21
47
Assa Abloy Ltd. 8 0 0 18 2.21
48
Qinetiq Ltd. 6 2 0 0 2.13
49
Latent Drive Ltd. 0 3 426,069 1 2.00
50
FOX International Group Ltd. 3 0 0 30 1.92
Rank Organisation Patent
applications 		Funded
projects 		Funding
Amount (EUR) 		Trademark
applications 		Score
1
King's College London UNIVERSITY 17 91 83,876,902 0 61.17
2
University of Southampton 10 102 106,547,332 0 58.95
3
Oxford University Innovation Ltd. 31 0 0 1 45.67
4
University of Leeds 3 106 89,838,944 0 44.65
5
The University of Birmingham 4 103 82,049,079 0 43.48
6
University of Bristol 1 96 85,802,322 0 39.20
7
University OF Exeter 2 83 79,517,282 0 37.04
8
The University of Manchester 9 50 40,833,206 0 31.64
9
The Secretary of State for Business and Trade 11 0 0 15 25.97
10
Imperial College of Science Technology and Medicine 0 87 45,837,265 1 25.88
11
University of Durham 1 48 57,183,203 0 24.34
12
University of Edinburgh 3 33 42,888,212 0 21.10
13
Swansea University 1 32 49,239,004 1 20.51
14
University of Leicester 5 43 24,671,282 0 20.29
15
University of York 1 48 41,695,797 0 19.98
16
University OF Surrey Company Inc. by Roya Charter (England/Wale 4 28 34,440,192 0 19.47
17
Cardiff University 1 55 36,224,843 0 19.43
18
United Kingdom Research AND Innovation 2 18 43,106,627 0 17.59
19
University of Warwick 2 39 30,819,271 0 17.10
20
Queen Mary University of London 7 21 13,217,408 0 16.85
21
Cranfield University 6 16 17,527,686 0 15.91
22
University OF Sussex 2 22 28,624,890 0 14.08
23
The University of Liverpool 6 21 8,483,479 0 14.07
24
The Queen's University of Belfast 6 14 6,442,207 1 13.17
25
Aston University 1 38 15,288,961 2 12.47
26
London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine 1 23 26,546,533 0 12.18
27
Queen Mary, University of London Foundation 4 18 12,005,772 0 11.73
28
THE University OF Sheffield 5 13 6,408,840 0 10.90
29
Newcastle University 3 19 11,435,506 0 10.26
30
University of Strathclyde 2 17 7,983,522 2 8.89
31
University OF Northumbria AT Newcastle HIGHER EDUCATION CORPORATION 0 27 11,498,468 2 8.39
32
University of Lancaster 1 12 5,575,413 5 8.05
33
The Francis Crick Institute Ltd. 1 16 13,642,825 0 7.56
34
Oxford Brookes University 3 6 8,205,594 0 7.51
35
Royal Holloway and Bedford New College 1 20 8,962,567 0 6.81
36
The Open University 0 18 9,916,334 1 6.01
37
University of Aberdeen 1 15 8,602,997 0 6.00
38
Brunel University London 1 18 6,030,874 0 5.70
39
Heriot-Watt University 2 11 4,043,316 0 5.60
40
University of Lancashire 3 4 1,043,593 0 5.21
41
Institute of Cancer Research 1 6 5,540,976 0 3.86
42
De Montfort University 1 4 6,126,694 0 3.74
43
Bangor University 1 7 4,526,539 0 3.72
44
City St George's, University of London 0 6 549,859 4 3.67
45
The University of Huddersfield 1 8 1,876,660 0 3.11
46
The Pirbright Institute 1 5 3,300,312 0 3.09
47
University OF THE West OF England, Bristol UK UNIVERSITY 1 7 1,718,816 0 2.93
48
University of Bradford Union 1 6 1,932,705 0 2.84
49
University of the West of Scotland Charity 1 4 745,843 0 2.23

Calculation basis

The following four performance indicators are taken into account when calculating the score:

Indicator Sources Weight
Patents Epobase 45 %
Number of public fundings Fts Ukri Sat Hor 15 %
Total public funding Fts Ukri Sat Hor 30 %
Trademarks Euipotm Euipods 10 %

The highest value achieved for each key figure in the period under review is set as the maximum point value of 100. The two categories Economy and Research are evaluated separately. The period under review was the year 2025.

The performance indicators used are available together with financial figures as Deep Data Finance/Marketing/Tech via the North Data's Data Services.

An evaluation is required and only carried out if the respective organization is entered in the sources with the correct name and registered office. Subsequent changes are not permitted.

Data

Download
Download the data of the respective category in CSV/Excel format.
Commercial Research

Creative Commons License The innovation ranking data is provided by North Data and may be reused under the terms of the Creative Commons CC-BY license.