Over the years, most Dutch universities lose ground in the world rankings of British research firm QS. The exceptions are the University of Amsterdam and TU Delft, which have alternated as the highest-ranking Dutch university for the past decade.
On Tuesday evening, the new QS World University Rankings were released – somewhat prematurely called the rankings for the year 2025. TU Delft landed in place 49, making it the highest scoring Dutch university. The University of Amsterdam landed in spot 55. In 2024, TU Delft was also the highest ranking Dutch university with spot 47. The rankings of other Dutch universities have actually gotten worse over the past 10 years. At number one is the American MIT. It is the thirteenth time this university has won a gold medal.
Criticism
There are more world rankings in circulation, such as the Shanghai Ranking and the British Times Higher Education rankings. The main criticism of such lists is that they create their own reality: how do you give a single score to an entire university, with all its staff and students? How big are the differences really?
On a special page about rankings, universities association UNL summarizes the criticism (link in Dutch). The choices of rankers are arbitrary and debatable, is the view. So they want to give little weight to such lists.
Opportunistic use
An advice to universities from their own “expert group” a year ago stated that there should be a culture change so that universities do not make “opportunistic use” of university rankings.
But the experts don’t want to ignore rankings altogether, either. “At the same time, this culture change must occur in a way that does not pose disproportionate risks to the reputation and name recognition of universities,” the expert group said. (HOP, BB/Delta, AdB)
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