The merits of the Dutch higher education system were asserted yesterday when five Dutch universities won their position among the world’s elite establishments.

Delft University was the highest scoring institution from the Netherlands at 51st place. The University of Amsterdam was 71st, while Utrecht University followed closely behind with 78th. Leiden earnt a more modest 87th place, with Wageningen University and Research Center taking last place on the list at 100th position.

For a country with a small population, the Netherlands is well represented on the international education rankings. However, the list also highlights the lack of a serious challenger to the leading establishments in the U.S and the U.K. Many of the universities with positions above those based in the Netherlands receive far greater funding and finance.

Harvard took first position, with 7 out of the top 10 spots going to U.S establishments. The most significant changes came from Asia, with improvements from Chinese universities leading to their climbing of the rankings. U.K universities in contrast declined on the world-scale.

About the survey
According to the Times Higher Education, the World Reputation Rankings 2012 is produced by 17.554 leading academics from 149 countries who have rated campuses across the world according to how good they thought their research and teaching were. This is the largest international survey of academic opinion ever undertaken.

Top 10 universities by reputation in 2012
› Harvard University, United States
› Massachusetts Institute of Technology, United States
› University of Cambridge, United Kingdom
› Stanford University, United States
› University of California Berkeley, United States
› University of Oxford, United Kingdom
› Princeton University, United States
› University of Tokyo, Japan
› University of California Los Angeles, United States
› Yale University, United States

Note that apart from the World Reputation Rankings 2012, Dutch universities scored highly in the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2011-2012 and ranked the Netherlands as the 3rd "knowledge country" in world.
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