Utrecht University has been hailed the best university in the Netherlands for 15 years in a row, in the latest annual Academic Ranking of World Universities, a list of the 500 best universities in the world compiled by the Jia Tong University in Shanghai.

The survey put Utrecht top of the Dutch list in 47th place, up 18 places on last year’s ranking. It was followed by Groningen in 59th place, Rotterdam (73) and Leiden (88). Radboud, Amsterdam, Wageningen, the VU in Amsterdam in Delft all made the top 200.

The world’s two best universities are American universities Harvard and Stanford while British jewel in the crown Cambridge comes in third.

The criteria used by Shanghai university include the number of articles published in scientific magazines, citations by professors and research students and the number of awards.

Other rankings used to compare universities all have different ideas about how good Dutch educational institutions are.

For example, the QS World University Rankings said last year Amsterdam was the top-rated Dutch university, followed by Delft. The Times Higher Education ranking, however, puts Delft in the lead of the Dutch pack.