Organisation - October 4, 2012

Wageningen falls five places onlife sciences list

Wageningen UR has fallen from position 17 to position 22 in the World University Ranking of life sciences universities. Of the European universities, four British universities and the ETH Zurich score better on the ranking of Times Higher Education.

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Although Wageningen UR has climbed from position 75 to 70 in the general ranking of Times Higher Education, it loses ground in the field of life sciences. This is mainly because other universities - three American, one Canadian and one Swiss - have obtained better scores than last year and now stand above Wageningen UR. The latter now has 77.8 points, against last year's 78.4. The reason for this slight fall is unclear. The score is an aggregate of more scores, such as the publication and citation score of researchers, the staff-student ratio, the available research budget from government and the market, and the international mix of students and lecturers.
The leading university is the American Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with 91.6 points. The ETH Zurich has overtaken Wageningen as the best life sciences university on mainland Europe, with a score of 80.2. Utrecht University, which was in position 30 with 66.6 points, is no longer in the top 50. Gent University has now made it to the list at position 48.