Professor Osmo Kivinen, researcher Juha Hedman and Dr. Päivi Kaipainen are from the Research Unit for the Sociology of Education (RUSE), University of Turku, Finland. They have published about the topic of the keynote address for instance in Scientometrics 2013 “Productivity analysis of research in Natural Sciences, Technology and Clinical Medicine: an input–output model applied in comparison of Top 300 ranked universities of 4 North European and 4 East Asian countries” and in Scientometrics 2008 “World-wide University Rankings — A Scandinavian approach”.

They also have had presentations earlier in IIIS conference 2011 “From rankings to ratings: An input-output analysis of productivity of research and teaching by disciplines” and “From global performance rankings towards national productivity ratings: Productivity of scientific action in technology and management/social sciences”.

All around the world high expectations are laid on the capability of university research to contribute to the development of knowledge-based society and economic growth. The comparative analysis focuses on four US states (Massachusetts, Minnesota, Connecticut, New Jersey) and four EU countries (Finland, the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium), all qualifying as rich in terms of knowledge capital and economic prospects. Productivity of top university research in six main fields (agriculture, natural sciences, technology, clinical medicine, life sciences and social sciences) is examined based on data from Web of Science, NSF (National Science Foundation), NCES (National Center for Educational Statistics), EUMIDA (European University Data Collection) and NTU-ranking (National Taiwan University ranking).