Rankings and accreditations
The Problem-Based Learning system at Maastricht University guarantees a high quality education. Students get more out of their studies, take less time to complete their studies and are overall more satisfied.
Rankings
Elsevier
In the Dutch magazine Elsevier, students and professors rank universities based on their range of programmes, facilities, curriculum, quality of teaching, testing standards and overall organisation and communication:
- according to the students, UM is the best university for bachelor's programmes in Econometrics and Operations Research, International Business and Medicine in 2011
- professors ranked the bachelor's programme Health Sciences as the best in the Netherlands in 2011
QS World University Rankings
In the World University Rankings, Maastricht University is ranked 109, marking a sharp rise from 172nd in 2006. The Medicine programme was one of the top 20 European institutions in the clinical medicine ranking.
Shanghai Ranking
In 2011 Maastricht University placed in the top 300 of the annual 'Academic ranking of world universities', better known as the Shanghai Ranking. This Ranking scores universities on the quality of education and scientific staff, research output and academic performance per scientist. UM scored especially well in the latter two categories.
Financial Times
Maastricht University's master's programme in International Business is ranked one of the top 28 business programmes in the world according to the Master in Management Programmes published by the Financial Times. In terms of value for money Maastricht ranked an impressive third.
CHE Ranking
The Centrum für Hochschulentwicklung (CHE) Excellence ranking compares European research centres for prospective master's and PhD students. Every two years CHE examines different types of studies. This time they looked at political science, economics and psychology.
Maastricht University, together with nine other Dutch universities, was ranked within the excellence group for psychology and economics. Maastricht was distinguished by the large number of publications, the mobility of its students (especially economics students), and a large number of citations in international journals.
Every two years, the CHE University Ranking reviews a number of university programmes. The scores do not result in an actual ranking list, but are rather used to place several aspects of the study programmes, such as ’international orientation’ and ’overall study situation’, into three groups: top, middle or bottom group. Between 2009 and 2011, several UM programmes in the field of business and economics, health care, political science and psychology were reviewed. For almost all of the reviewed aspects, the programmes were placed in the top group.
Keuzegids Hoger Onderwijs
As with last year, Maastricht University is among the top three Dutch universities in the 2012 edition of the 'Keuzegids' (Dutch University Guide), after Wageningen University and Eindhoven University of Technology. 13 of the 16 assessed bachelor programmes ranked in the top 3, 7 of which took first place: European Studies, European Law School, Econometrics, International Business, European Public Health, University College and a shared first place for Fiscal Economics. Also read the UM news item.
In the 'Keuzegids' master's edition of 2011, Maastricht University was also ranked first in the Netherlands. Thanks to high quality accreditation reports, the following seven UM master's programmes came either first or second in their categories: European Public Affairs, International Laws, International Economic Studies, International Business, Mental Health, Physician-Clinical Investigator, and the Research Master in Health Sciences.
Accreditations
Maastricht University's programmes are accredited by the Dutch-Flemish Accreditation Organisation (NVAO). UM also strives to obtain international accreditation for its courses. In 2010, the bachelor's programme in European Public Health was accredited by the German Akkreditierungsagentur für Studiengänge im Bereich Gesundheit und Soziales (AHPGS).
'Triple crown' accreditation
The Maastricht University School of Business and Economics (SBE) is internationally accredited by the renowned AACSB, EQUIS and AMBA, making it one of a few international schools with all three accreditations. The bachelor's and master's programmes in International Business offered at SBE also received in 2010 the NVAO "certification of internationalisation".
NVAO excellence label
NVAO regularly audits the institutions that it gives accreditations to. In 2008 the University College Maastricht was the first to receive a quality label from the NVAO for the achievement level of its graduate students. Only two higher education programmes have been awarded this label.
