DutchNews.nl - 12 Dutch universities feature in new Times Educational rankings

Twelve Dutch universities feature in the latest Times Educational World University Rankings' top 200, making the Netherlands the third-best performing country.

But despite the strong Dutch performance overall, none are in the top 50. Leiden is the highest ranked Dutch educational establishment, in 64th place, having overtaken Utrecht which is now ranked 67th.

Wageningen is the third at number 70 and Erasmus in Rotterdam is fourth at 71. Tilburg is the only Dutch establishment not to feature in the list. In terms of European universities only, Leiden is 16th.

Junior education minister Halbe Zijlstra said these ‘excellent’ figures show ‘Dutch education is better than some people would have us believe.’

The California Institute of Technology is the new leader of the ranking, followed by Oxford University and Stanford.

Rankings published by Britain's QS organisation in September said Amsterdam is the best Dutch university.

Earlier the Academic Ranking of World Universities, a list of the world's best research universities compiled by Jia Tong University in Shanghai, said Utrecht is the top-rated Dutch institution in 53rd place.

However, Delft University is the highest placed Dutch institution in the Times Educational international reputations list.

What do you think about university rankings? Have your say using the comment box below.

Readers' Comments

Rankings are very criticized and rightly so because (inter alia) the indicators favour large research universities (so HBOs cannot be ranked in these rankings) that publish in English (hence you have less German universities). In any case, it is of more interest to see how many universities are listed as % of the number of institutions in the system. NL can never have 76 universities listed like the US as there are less in the country.

By the_expat | 4 October 2012 11:30 AM

The website says "The top universities rankings employ 13 carefully calibrated performance indicators". It's rigged.

By GS | 4 October 2012 12:07 PM

Such news will always be good for NL so NL can start to profit and earn good monies from overseas students especially those from emerging economies. Its a mega business in US and UK.

By ufo | 4 October 2012 3:28 PM

Well i think many universities are most popular in there diffrent countries like Asian have there own ranking which have high qualified in there own countries but most of people recommend top universities like you have mention in your article

By cyntinadiana | 5 October 2012 8:50 AM