Leiden University again in top 100 in Shangai ranking
Like last year, Leiden University is the third Dutch university in the 2016 Shanghai ranking. Leiden is ranked 93rd among the world's 500 best universities.
Dutch universities
Last year Leiden University was in 82nd place. The other Dutch universities in the top 100 are Utrecht University in 65th place and Groningen in 72nd place. Erasmus University, the University of Amsterdam, Wageningen University and the Vrije University are ranked between 101 and 150.
Publications and awards
The official name of the Shanghai ranking is the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU). Every year researchers study the performance of more than a thousand universities. They focus on the number of scientific publications by staff, giving greatest weight to articles in the most prominent journals such as Science and Nature. The number of staff and graduates receiving academic awards like the Nobel Prize is also an important factor.
Harvard still number 1
American universities continue to dominate the ranking. The leader in the top 100 is American Harvard University, for the 14th year in succession in first place. The best European university is Cambridge (UK) in 4th place. The highest scoring Asian university is Tokyo, in 20th place.
Points system
The score for the university that is at number 1 in the list is set at 100 points; all other universities are benchmarked against this score. There is not a great deal of difference in the points scored by the Dutch universities. Leiden scored 25.6 points, Groningen 27.5 and Utrecht 28.7.