Low ranking for Tilburg “says nothing”
In the new Leiden Ranking, Tilburg University gets the lowest ranking of all Dutch universities. In this ranking, that only takes into account the amount of cited publications, our university comes in at 294. But not to worry. According to no other than the compilers of this list, this kind of rankings have little meaning.”Every ranking gives a list that people use for their own purpose. We want to provide tools for policymakers, but we do not want to judge about who is the best”, Ludo Waltman says today in daily De Volkskrant. Waltman works at the Center for Science and Technology studies, that establishes the ranking each year.
This year, a different method is used. The ranking is now based on the order of the number of publications at an institution between 2011 and 2014. No conclusions regarding quality can be drawn from this, according to Waltman. The center has even considered to not use the term ‘ranking’ at all.
Also new on the list is that a hundred small universities are included. Because of that, Rockefeller University in New York is now on top of the list. 24 Nobel prize winners were associated with this ultra small university (about 200 students) in the past. Over 28 percent of its publications are among the most cited articles in the research period.
The best ‘scoring’ Dutch university in this ranking is Utrecht, at place 55 with 14,6 percent. Tilburg scored 10,6 percent. The scores of our universities are not far apart and have not changed much since previous years.
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