Universities ranking report 2022

Lisbon’s Nova, Porto University and Católica are the three universities in Portugal that turn out the most entrepreneurs.

According to a report in ECO published today (Monday, 31 October), the three universities were responsible for 740 graduates that later went on to set up their own companies. The information was taken from the University Ranking Report 2022 from Startup Portugal.
To encourage entrepreneurialism in universities, from 2023 Startup Portugal will award an award to the Portuguese university which stands out the most in the entrepreneurial ecosystem.
“We decided to launch this league table to call the attention of universities for the need for a growing and sustained encouragement of entrepreneurship at universities”, says António Dias Martins, Executive Director of Startup Portugal.
“There is still a lot of work to be done to encourage entrepreneurialism in our education system”.
And the data shows it: between 2022-2023 433,217 students in Portugal were enrolled in 120 educational institutions. This year alone 44.5% of residents, between 30 to 34 years, completed a higher education course, an increase of 0.5% on 2021-2022.
The number of people employed with higher education in Portugal increased by 1.45 million in 2020, around 31% of the population, to 1.65 million or 34%.
The data compiled by Startup Portugal from its data platform Dealroom, used to map the national ecosystem, revealed that there were 1,509 founders from 47 higher education institutions in Portugal from a total of 433,212 students enrolled, in 120 further education institutions in 2022.
Of these alumni founders, 77.4% too their degrees in public institutions and 22.6% in private. Public education absorbed some 81% of the students enrolled in higher education and private only 19% with a predominance of founders in private further education establishments.
“Taking into account the gulf between the number of those enrolled in universities — over 433,000 – and the number of alumni founders, we recognise that there is still a great deal to be done to encourage entrepreneurism in our education system”, warns Startup Portugal in order to “increase the number of startups in Portugal” which currently stands at around 2,000.