Facts & Figures

University revenue

Figure 1 shows university income over the year 2009. The overview lists income for all 14 universities. Amounts are shown in millions of euros.

Students

Figure 2 shows the number of students enrolled in research university education as at 1 October 2009 and on 1 October 2010. Only first-time enrolments are included. Students enrolled in a second degree programme are not included in the table.

Staff members

Figure 3 shows the number of staff members employed by the Dutch universities as at 31 December 2009 and 31 December 2010. The figures listed represent the number of full-time appointments (‘full-time equivalents’). This means that the number of staff employed by the universities may in reality be higher as a certain proportion may have part-time appointments. Figures in the table are inclusive of ‘Hoopgebied Gezondheid’.

Degrees granted

Figure 4 shows the number of degrees granted from a Dutch university in 2009. The figures represent the number of degrees awarded. Since a portion of students graduated with a double degree, however, the actual number of graduates in 2009 is slightly lower than the figures suggest. Given the significant differences between different degree types, figures in the table should not be counted as aggregates.

Research publications

Figure 5 shows the number of research publications published by employees of the Dutch universities in 2009. The figures encompass all university theses, articles and professional publications in this year.

Comparable figures published by the Netherlands Observatory of Science and Technology (NOWT) tend to be lower, which is due to the fact that the NOWT only includes a portion of all publications (specifically, those appearing in a select group of chiefly English-language journals).

Citation-impact score of Dutch universities

Figure 6 shows the ‘citation impact factor’ of academic scholarly articles. This factor is a measure of the value that fellow scholars attach to those articles. Citation impact is measured by calculating the number of times fellow scholars cite a given article. All articles worldwide are assigned an average base citation impact factor of ‘1’. Thus, a score of 1.33 means the impact of scholarly articles published at Dutch universities lies 33% above the global average. Only Swiss, Danish and American universities scored somewhat higher than Dutch universities over the 2004-2008 period.

Ranking information

Table 7 shows the positions of the Dutch universities in the three most important rankings in 2010. Each ranking employs its own methods for distinguishing between institutions, resulting in different ranking sequences. Two Dutch universities – Tilburg University and the Open University – are not included in the leading rankings because they do not generate enough scholarly articles to compete with the large universities. The fact that they are not included does not imply poor quality. In fact, quite the reverse is true, as Tilburg University has consistently scored high in lesser-known rankings focused on business schools. For example in the UTD Top 100 Worldwide Business School ranking: Tilburg University (44), Erasmus University Rotterdam (49) and Maastricht University (99).

Investments in higher education

Figure 8 shows the distribution of investments in higher education (universities of applied sciences and research universities) in the top ten most competitive countries worldwide. Investment figures are expressed as a percentage of gross national product and are split between investments made by government bodies and those made by private parties (businesses and individuals). Figures for both sources show that their investments in Dutch higher education fall below the international average.

The order in the table is based on the order which is used in The Global Competitiveness Report 2009-2010 of the World Economic Forum.

Investments in university research

Figure 9 shows the distribution of investments in university research in the top ten most competitive countries worldwide. Investments are expressed as a percentage of the gross national product and are split between investments made by government bodies, businesses, foreign parties and others. In four out of the five sources, investments in Dutch university research fall below the international average.
Figures from the NOWT-report 2010 are used in the calculation of the R&D-intensity of the university research. These figures are based on internationally accepted figures from OECD. At the time of publication of the NOWT-report, the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science (OCW) published corrected figures of the R&D-intensity of university research. These corrected figures are not taken into consideration, because the method of calculation is still unclear.