The Clarence Centre for Enterprise and Innovation – part of London South Bank University’s (LSBU) hub of start-ups, local businesses and entrepreneurial activity,  is ranked second in the UK, fourth in Europe and fifteenth globally, for innovative business development, in a new report by UBI Global World Rankings.

UBI Global, the company conducting the analysis, is a Swedish research and advisory firm, renowned for its regional and global mapping and evaluation of global business growth. This year, the rankings were selected after assessing 1370 programs, derived from the benchmarking process of analysing 259 business developments from 53 countries worldwide.

Home to 72 small businesses that regularly engage with LSBU, the Clarence Centre works to provide local support to businesses in the community, as well as nationally and globally. It also helps to generate funding support for PhD students, curriculum development and guest lectures enhancing the education and experience of the LSBU student body. Last year, businesses housed at the Clarence Centre generated a turnover of £82million and safe-guarded 100 extra jobs on-site.

Since opening in 2013, the Clarence Centre has helped support 1,450 external London based start-ups, 27 Student start-ups and engaged with 5,000 students a year who have an interest in starting a company.

According to UBI Global, a top university-linked business growth program connected to a higher education institution provides immense value for entrepreneurship and client start-ups while contributing to the local business community and further afield.

Adrian Tindall, LSBU’s Tenant Manager at the Clarence Centre said:

“LSBU is delighted that the Clarence Centre has achieved an outstanding impact and performance in relation to its global peers. This is due to how the Clarence Centre engages with the local business community and includes everything from helping start-ups to liaising with entrepreneurs worldwide. It also includes bridging the gap between the academic and the business world, using techniques and finding creative ways to do this through milestones agreed with the businesses.

“UBI Global provide worldwide insights into business growth in university linked programs globally, helping them to become more competitive and efficient overall.”

The UBI Global World Benchmark Study 2017/18 shows that the participating development programs accepted over 10,000 new client start-ups in 2016. Their current client and recent alumni start-ups have over 72,000 employees on the payroll. Over the past five years, these same ventures generated over $3.2 billion in sales revenue and raised a combined total of over $4.7 billion in funding.

View the complete global rankings.