Utrecht bovenaan, Amsterdam in opmars

UvA en RUG staan op afstand onder de UU als hoogste Nederlandse universiteiten. De samenstellers noemen de Amsterdamse universiteit een van de opvallende stijgers (van 107 naar 93), naast Leipzig en Genève. Top blijven instellingen als MIT en Stanford, terwijl de ETH in Zürich samen met Cambridge en Oxford in Europa leidend zijn. Canada is een van de landen die zich zeer goed weten te handhaven aan de top.

Er is volgens de samenstellers niettemin sprake van “a concerning  academic digital divide between North American universities and the European ones, as almost the 60% of the 200 first positions are occupied by North American universities. On the first positions of the ranking are MIT, Stanford and Harvard universities. The University of Cambridge, which goes down the list until 27th position, continues being the first European university that appears in the ranking followed by Oxford and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology of Zurich. It is also worth to mention the good results obtained in general by the Canadian universities that maintains several institutions very well positioned.

Nordic universities like Helsinki and Uppsala universities continue to improving their positions in the ranking. And also the universities of Geneva, Amsterdam and Leipzig show an interesting progress. Australian National University in Oceania and UNAM from Mexico in Latin America are improving their positions as regional leaders but they are also close to world leaders status.

Another interesting result observed is the improvement that Japanese universities are experiencing. Tokyo and Kyoto universities are increasing their position in the ranking which reflects the commitment of these institutions to web publishing. Also, it is worth to mention the progress that some Chinese universities like the National Taiwan University, and the University of Hong Kong and the Chinese University of Hong Kong are doing.