Are you looking for a top-ranked university? Or are you wondering what university rankings actually are? We’ve got you covered! In this blog, I will explain our Wageningen University rankings and how the ranking lists are compiled. They can help you in your search for a suitable university.

What is a university ranking?

Several organisations compile university rankings based on statistics, student feedback and research. Some of them focus on the whole university while others look into a certain subject, for example, agriculture or food. This is important if you want to study a specific topic.

With the university rankings, you can easily compare universities. It’s a good way to start your search for a university. However, it is still important to look at in which country you would like to study, what kind of university fits you and does the programme fits your interest.

What do our students and teachers think of our top-ranked university? Have a look!

International University Rankings

There are countless organisations that bring out rankings. To get a bit of an overview, I listed the largest international university rankings below.

The QS World University rankings

The QS has different kinds of rankings. An overall ranking that lists the world’s best university, but also a subject and a location ranking. If you want to get an overall view you can have a look at their World University Rankings. Each institution has been assessed according to five key metrics. In this ranking, Wageningen University is listed at place 124.

Another useful ranking of QS is the ranking by subject. In this ranking, you can easily search on the subject you are interested in and see what are the world’s best universities in that area. It covers over 51 disciplines, grouped into five broad subject areas. For example, you can see that Wageningen University ranks #1 in the subject of Agriculture & Forestry and we recently scaled up to #2 in Environmental Sciences.

Times Higher Education World University rankings

The Times Higher Education World University ranking is the largest and most diverse ranking. You can find more than 1500 universities worldwide on this list. The ranking is based on 13 performance indicators that measure an institution’s performance across four areas: teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook.

You can find large universities at the top of this ranking, like Oxford, Harvard and Stanford. You’ll find Wageningen University at place 59, the best in the Netherlands! As a small university, we are very proud to be listed at the top of the world.

The Academic Ranking of World Universities (Shanghai Ranking)

This world ranking is also known as the Shanghai Ranking. It is published by a fully independent organization on high education intelligence. They use six indications to rank the university. These include the number of alumni and staff winning prizes and the number of cited researchers.

In the overall ranking, Wageningen University ranks #151-200 in the world. In the subject rankings, our best-ranked subjects are Agricultural Sciences (#1), Geography (#2), Food Science & Technology (#3) and Ecology (#4).

I hope this list helps you to get more insights into the Wageningen University rankings. You can find the latest rankings at www.wur.eu/rankings. And keep in mind that it’s also important that you feel at home at your future university and it fits your personal interest.