Wageningen University & Research shine in QS Rankings 2024

In the latest edition of the influential QS World University Rankings, WUR has dropped to place 151, the same spot it occupied in 2015. Despite its lower position, WUR remains one of the world’s 10% best universities.

WUR occupied the 124th position last year. There is no single unequivocal reason for its decline in the ranking. According to Marleen Noomen, a specialist involved in WUR rankings, various issues may have contributed to the lower score.

More categories
This QS World University Rankings edition includes more categories than last year’s edition, for example. WUR’s score in the new International Research Network is high, but there is still ample room for improvement in the so-called Employer Outcomes category.

Citations
WUR scored lower than in previous years in the Citations per Faculty category. This category calculates the number of citations in the period 2017-2022.

Noomen: ‘Our score in the number of Citations per Faculty, over 2017-2022 dropped, as it did last year. This may be because the number of citations in 2015 and 2016 was very high due to a number of highly cited publications in, among others, The Lancet. These articles have dozens, if not hundreds, of co-authors. These top years are excluded from this year’s total.’

More universities ranked
Moreover, the number of universities included in the ranking has increased. No less than 1503 organisations were ranked, compared to 1422 last year.