Seven Dutch universities have made their way into the top 100 of The World University Rankings 2021 from Time Magazine. We humbly grant that effort from the tiny Netherlands an ‘A’!
Universities across the world are assessed across four areas: teaching, research, knowledge transfer, and international outlook, with 13 performance indicators in total.
Global performance
The highest-ranked Dutch university was not TU Delft, home of the Delft Hyperloop, as it has been in previous years. Instead, Wageningen University & Research took the top spot in the Netherlands, coming in at a global equal 62nd place. It was closely followed by Amsterdam University (66th) and Leiden University (equal 70th).
While US universities dominate the rankings, holding eight of the top 10 positions, Chinese universities are also making a climb to the top. The UK’s University of Oxford can officially claim first place. However, the Netherlands didn’t choke on the test, ranking fifth overall for representation in the top 200.
Check out the rankings of all the Dutch universities that made the top 200 below.
Dutch university rankings
| Ranking | University | FTE Students |
| =62 | Wageningen University & Research |
14,356 |
| 66 | University of Amsterdam | 24,747 |
| =70 | Leiden University | 30,178 |
| 72 | Erasmus University Rotterdam |
26,453 |
| =75 | Utrecht University |
32,022 |
| =78 | Delft University of Technology |
19,594 |
| =80 | University of Groningen |
28,392 |
| 116 | Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam |
25,443 |
| =121 | Maastricht University |
17,326 |
| =136 | Radboud University Nijmegen |
20,752 |
| =187 | Eindhoven University of Technology |
9,469 |
| 201–250 | Tilburg University |
9,380 |
| 201–250 | University of Twente |
8,207 |
Best represented countries in the top 200
| Country/region | Number of institutions in top 200 | Top institution | Rank |
| United States | 59 | Stanford University | 2 |
| United Kingdom | 29 | University of Oxford | 1 |
| Germany | 21 | LMU Munich | 32 |
| Australia | 12 | University of Melbourne | 31 |
| Netherlands | 11 | Wageningen University & Research | =62 |
| Canada | 8 | University of Toronto | 18 |
| China | 7 | Tsinghua University | =20 |
| South Korea | 7 | Seoul National University | 60 |
| Switzerland | 7 | ETH Zurich | 14 |
| France | 5 | Paris Sciences et Lettres – PSL Research University Paris | 46 |
| Hong Kong | 5 | University of Hong Kong | 39 |
| Sweden | 5 | Karolinska Institute | =36 |
Were you surprised by the results? Did your university make the cut? Tell us in the comments below!