Dutch universities score higher in the latest QS ranking

For the first time, sustainability appears as one of the indicators in the QS World University Rankings. For example, QS verified whether universities contribute to the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals, which target don’t just target climate change but also social equality and the fight against poverty. The sustainability score counts for 5 percent of a university’s total score.

Reputation
The primary metric for the rankings remains the reputation of a university among academic researchers and employers but the balance has been altered this time. Academic reputation was given slightly less weight (counting for 30 instead of 40 percent of the total score), while reputation as an employer now counts for 15 percent of the score instead of 10 percent.

Other criteria include the internationalisation of academic staff and students; citation scores for academic articles; the ratio of students to faculty; and how students perform on the job market.

Little has changed at the top. For the twelfth time, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology came first and Cambridge, in the UK, came second. Oxford won the bronze medal, followed by the American universities Harvard and Stanford.

The Netherlands
Almost all Dutch universities climbed up a few places. This year, the Delft University of Technology made its way into the top 50, finishing at number 47. The University of Amsterdam ranked 53rd.

Six other Dutch universities landed somewhere between 100 and 200 in the rankings. Wageningen was the only one of them to have lost ground, sliding from 124 to 151.

Criticism
There are other world rankings in circulation, such as the Shanghai Ranking and the Times Higher Education Rankings. They all take a somewhat different approach. The main criticism faced by these rankings is that they end up becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. But what are the differences between them? And why is the number of articles published in international journals considered the most important standard?

What’s worse is that institutions sometimes pursue dubious policies in order to move up in the rankings. A university in Saudi Arabia paid academic researchers to say that they worked there so that their reputations would boost that university’s score.

It’s also not always possible to trace how points are awarded. For example, Delft University of Technology scored 98 out of 100 points for sustainability, while Eindhoven got a meagre 18.

That’s why we often hear calls to ignore these rankings. At the same time, others warn that they do nonetheless tell us something about the admirable position of Dutch universities in the world.

Of two minds
The umbrella association representing research universities, Universities of The Netherlands, is clearly torn. Their webpage on the rankings gives a succinct summary of the criticism: “A ranking sketches an incomplete image of reality. The particular power of higher education institutions is far and away their mutual diversity. The pitfall of rankings is that they sketch a global image that does not do justice to the complexity of what is being measured.”

“Nonetheless, an external benchmark can be a valuable instrument”, the association adds. “It is, however, important to remember that no single ranking is completely objective. Ultimately, a ranking is the total sum of subjective choices made by the compilers.”