Most Dutch universities have dropped in the Times Higher Education world ranking for the second year in a row, with Delft University of Technology the highest placed at 57th.

Eight of the 12 Dutch universities have fallen on the list, three have risen and one remains unchanged. Radboud University in Nijmegen dropped 11 places to 154th, while Amsterdam’s VU fell from 136th to 176th. Tilburg University is again the lowest-ranked Dutch institution and has been demoted to the 300-350 list.

The organisation said Dutch universities have gone down in the listing because of a decline in the quality of research. They are likely to perform even worse in the coming years as government cuts to higher education spending begin to have more impact, Times Higher Education said.

In the top 100, Delft fell from 56th to 57th place, while the University of Amsterdam dropped from 58th to 62nd. Wageningen and Leiden have risen slightly to 66th and 70th place respectively, while Groningen slipped from 80th to 82nd.

The Dutch universities association has previously criticised the rankings, saying it is extremely difficult to express university performance in figures. Utrecht University decided several years ago not to take part and does not appear in the ranking at all.

The list is topped by Oxford University for the 10th year in a row, followed by MIT in the US and Princeton and Cambridge in joint third place. The rankings are based on publications, teaching, research environment, research quality, industry links, and international outlook.

In September, Dutch universities warned the Netherlands will fall further behind its competitors in research and education after finance minister Eelco Heinen announced further cuts to the sector in next year’s budget.

“This cabinet is still intent on wrecking education”, teaching union Algemene Onderwijsbond commented, with further cutbacks totalling €800 million across the board set to take effect next year.

“Investment in research and innovation is sinking towards 2% of the national income while in other countries it is 3% or more,” said UNL chairman Caspar van den Berg at the time.