Thirty-three University of Groningen programmes judged best by Elsevier

Students have judged seventeen of the Bachelor’s programmes taught at the University of Groningen as the best in the country. These programmes attained the highest mark in an annual survey carried out by the weekly magazine Elsevier, which was published on 26 September 2013. Sixteen Master’s programmes also finished in first place. Theology and Philosophy top the tables in both the Bachelor’s and Master’s rankings, as well as in the assessments given by professors.

In the Elsevier survey, students were asked to assess their degree programme and university in terms of the facilities available to them, the arrangement of their programme, the quality of teaching and lecturers, exams and assessments and the internal organization and communication.

Bachelor’s: seventeen first places, twelve second places

The University of Groningen programmes that attained the highest marks in the country are Archaeology, Business Administration, Human Movement Sciences, Communication and Information Studies, English Language and Culture, Pharmacy, Art History, Artificial Intelligence, Life Science and Technology, Middle Eastern Studies, Dutch Language and Culture, Chemistry, Chemical Technology, Sociology, Linguistics, Theology and Philosophy.

The Religious Studies programme was not ranked, as it is the only programme of that name. Nonetheless, it achieved a remarkably high total score.

In addition, twelve other University of Groningen Bachelor’s programmes finished in second place: Biology, Econometrics and Operations Research, Economics of Taxation, Medicine, Greek and Latin Language and Culture, International Business, Pedagogy, Astronomy, Dentistry, Applied Planning, Applied Physics and Mathematics.

Master’s: sixteen first places

Master’s programmes are more difficult to rank due to the high level of differentiation and other names for programmes that are often very similar in content. Nevertheless, the University of Groningen finished in first place for the Master’s programmes in Business Administration, Computing Science, Pharmacy, Philosophy, Finance, Medicine, Human Movement Sciences, Literary Studies, Marketing, Media Studies, North American Studies, Educational Sciences, Sociology, Supply Chain Management, Linguistics and Theology and Religious Studies.

Professors’ assessment

Elsevier also asked professors and associate professors to name the best programme in their field (excluding their own programme). The Bachelor’s programmes in Theology, Philosophy and Chemistry taught in Groningen were judged to be the best.

Elsevier survey

The survey is primarily based on the assessments of 264,000 students, taken from the comprehensive National Student Survey. In addition, some 2,000 professors indicated which universities they considered to be the best in their field. They based their judgement on the quality of the Bachelor’s programme, the range of Master’s programmes and the quality of lecturers and academic publications.

For more information
Communication department University of Groningen, tel. +31 (0)50 363 4444