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How important are Universities to the software industry productivity. One would hope fairly high. For various reasons, I have been considering this question and some collaborators pointed me at the Academic Ranking of World Universities which is referenced at Wikipedia as well and I first referred to in my free blog last November. This is produced by Shanghai Jiao Tong University, in China. I know that a discussion on ranking methodology may not be very helpful when considering economic growth issues, but there are some quite interesting and surprising results.
One of the things that pointed me there is the domination of the USA, which has over 50% of the top 100 places as it was quoted for this reason.
Sadly I haven’t kept in touch with this issue since I was asked to work on other things since Xmas. I am sure that basic research drives innovation and productivity; I think that research quality and output is part of an institution’s organic capability and therefore its undergraduate body and its ability to attract top students is important. I have come to the conclusion that Joy’s law
“Clever People work elsewhere”
