Six universities in the Netherlands have ranked in the top 100 universities worldwide, according to the World University Rankings 2024, as compiled by Times Higher Education. Delft retains its spot as the best university overall in the Netherlands. 

World University Rankings 2024 studies institutions in 166 different countries

The Times Higher Education ranking scores universities on 18 carefully selected performance indicators, updated this year to reflect the outputs of the diverse range of universities located across the world. 

These performance indicators are grouped into five areas: Teaching (the learning environment); Research environment (volume, income and reputation); Research quality (citation impact, research strength, research excellence and research influence); International outlook (staff, students and research); and Industry (income and patents).

Naturally, not all of these areas have an equal weight in the ranking, with Teaching weighted at 29,5 percent, Research Environment at 29 percent, Research Quality at 30 percent, International Outlook at 7,5 percent and Industry at 4 percent. The ranking looks at data, combined with the results of the Academic Reputation Survey 2023, where more than 500.000 votes were analysed to draw conclusions about universities in 166 different countries. 

Six Dutch universities make the top 100 in the World University Rankings 2024

The six Dutch universities featured in the top 100 are: Delft University of Technology, the University of Amsterdam, Wageningen University and Research, Leiden University, University of Groningen and the Erasmus University Rotterdam. The top Dutch university, Delft, came in 48th place, ahead of its 2023 spot in 70th position. 

TU Delft is a research university home to around 16.000 students, many of whom are international students, which produces world-leading research and has strong strategic partnerships with industry, including many Dutch companies. The university offers all of its master’s degree programmes in English. However those looking to undertake an undergraduate degree at the school will first need to do a few Dutch courses, since most of them are taught in Dutch. 

The Dutch university in the lowest spot, according to the ranking, is Tilburg University. Interestingly, the Dutch university with the lowest number of international students was named as Radboud University (ranked 140th), where of the 23.004 students, only 12 percent are internationals.

Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2024

The top Dutch universities for 2024 according to the World University Rankings are:

• 48. Delft University of Technology
• 61. University of Amsterdam
• 64. Wageningen University and Research
• 77. Leiden University
• 79. University of Groningen
• 99. Erasmus University Rotterdam 

As for the global top 10, the winners are:

• 1. University of Oxford
• 2. Stanford University
• 3. Massachusetts University of Technology
• 4. Harvard University
• 5. University of Cambridge
• 6. Princeton University
• 7. California Institute of Technology
• 8. Imperial College London
• 9. University of California, Berkeley
• 10. Yale University

For the full list of universities, or more information on how the list was compiled, see the Times Higher Education website.

Thumb image credit: Frank Cornelissen / Shutterstock.com