WUN member Maastricht University (UM) has ranked among the top 10 in the Times Higher Education (THE) 100 Under 50 ranking for the third year running, making it the sixth best young university in the world. The list was revealed at the Young Universities Summit in Dublin on 29 April 2015, where Rector Magnificus Prof. Luc Soete gave the keynote lecture.
In 2013, UM achieved sixth place in this special league table for universities younger than 50 years old, and has since then managed to maintain its sixth place. UM scored particularly well on indicators that provide insight into international orientation (e.g. the percentage of international staff and students), research and citations. UM’s total score also rose relative to last year (from 60.4 to 61.5).
The top 5 is again dominated by universities in Asia, the only exception being the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland, which took first place and thereby managed to knock South Korea’s Pohang University of Science and Technology (Postech) from the top spot.
Rector Magnificus Prof. Luc Soete: “The fact that Maastricht University was able to hold on to its sixth place in the face of such strong competition is most remarkable in itself. It is further evidence that we are on a par with the world’s very best young emerging universities.” In his keynote address titled ‘Development and growth: Tools for building a high ranking world class university’, Prof. Soete focused on the indicators for Maastricht University’s success.
The fact the UM ranks among the global leaders was also borne out in THE’s new list of ‘fastest rising young universities’ published last month. UM took second place, making it the second fastest rising young university in the THE World University Ranking (climbing 96 places since 2011).
In the most recent editions, UM took 101st place in the THE World University Ranking and 17th place in the THE’s 100 most international universities.
Similar to the THE World University Ranking, the ranking for young universities is based on 13 stringent and wide-ranging performance indicators for teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international orientation. For the 100 Under 50, the weighting of the indicators has been adjusted based on expert recommendations to ensure they are better aligned with the profiles of young universities. The outcomes for the research category are based on the world’s largest study into reputation, conducted by Thomson Reuters among more than 10,000 experienced academics.
