TU Delft rises in QS Ranking and remains the top Dutch university

Nine out of thirteen Dutch universities have gained ground in the global rankings published by research agency QS. TU Delft remains the highest-ranked university in the Netherlands, climbing two places to number 47.

Thursday, the new QS World University Rankings 2026 were released. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) once again takes the top spot. As with last year, the top 10 includes four American and four British universities. ETH Zurich and the National University of Singapore occupy the 7th and 8th positions respectively.

Warning about cutbacks

According to QS, Dutch higher education on average scores the highest in Europe. However, they also issue a warning about government cutbacks and the proposed restrictions on the number of English-taught programmes.

The primary criterion in the ranking is the university’s reputation among academics and employers, which together account for 35 percent of the total score. According to QS, the Netherlands scores particularly well in this area. However, when it comes to citation scores, a measure of the impact of academic publications, the country has slipped slightly.

Criticism on scores

In addition to the QS Ranking, there are also the Shanghai Ranking and the Times Higher Education list. These rankings often face criticism: how can an entire university be summarised in a single score? And how significant are the differences really?

This is why there are frequent calls to disregard such rankings. Utrecht University, for instance, no longer participates and does not submit any data. As a result, it disappeared from the Times Higher Education list, though it remains in the QS Ranking, which uses other sources, holding on to third place in the Netherlands, as it did last year.

The Association of Universities in the Netherlands (UNL) summarises the criticism on its website: the decisions made by ranking organisations are arbitrary and debatable. They argue that such league tables should carry little weight. (HOP, HC and BB)