Nine Dutch universities are among the top 200 in the world, according to the creators of the Shanghai Ranking. TU Delft ranks between 151 and 200. Little has changed for the Dutch universities at the top of the Chinese world ranking. Utrecht is one place lower than last year at number 56, and Groningen has dropped from 69 to 73. The seven other Dutch universities in the top 200, including TU Delft, have retained their positions.
The shifts are below that. Maastricht is no longer in the top 300, but in the group below, up to 400th place. TU Eindhoven, on the other hand, is gaining ground and has moved up to the same top 400. The University of Twente is falling behind and is no longer among the top 500. Tilburg remains at the bottom (701-800).
Value of rankings
According to critics, universities cannot be summarised in a single score. The criteria are said to be arbitrary or not always measure what you want to know. The Shanghai Ranking does not suffer from this, as it only uses public data. Among other things, the creators look at how many Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals alumni and staff have won. The number of publications in the authoritative journals Nature and Science also counts.
The top ten includes eight American universities plus the British universities of Cambridge and Oxford. The first non-Anglo-Saxon university is ranked 13th: the French Paris-Saclay University. China now has six universities in the top 50.
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