The ranking is based on surveys conducted among students and professors. This year marks the first time that Elsevier included actual figures in the tables revealing the study programmes with the best scores, such as academic success rates, drop-out rates and average examination results.

Louise Gunning, president of the UvA-HvA Executive Board is pleased with the good score given by the professors but at the same time acknowledges that the ranking paints a diverse picture: ‘It's clear that we've achieved good scores for a number of study programmes, such as Mathematics, whereas other study programmes still need to make significant gains.’

Several of the UvA Bachelor’s programmes were ranked number 1, including the programme in Mathematics, and the programme in German Language and Culture. Cultural Anthropology, Psychology and Physics and Astronomy were ranked number 1 in the professors’ scores. Among the Master’s degree programmes, the UvA's Dutch-taught Master’s in Tax Law (Fiscaal recht) was ranked number 1.