Elsevier published the medals list in the edition released today. The magazine no longer publishes a ranking of higher education institutions, so no institution can claim to be ‘the winner’.

Elsevier has awarded gold medals to five of the ten bachelor’s programmes at CHE university of applied sciences in Ede. Wageningen University won gold for three bachelor’s and five master’s programmes. Tio, a private institution, has won eight gold medals for programmes at its locations in Amsterdam, Eindhoven, Hengelo and Utrecht.

Wageningen clearly stands out with the amount of honored university programs. Among the bachelor's programs, there are five universities whose programs are awarded gold medals. In the overview of master's programs with a gold medal, only TU/e, TU Delft and VU are missing.

Survey

Elsevier bases its choice of medal winners on the results of the National Student Survey. The journalists worked with research agency ResearchNed to identify the best programmes in the eyes of the students themselves.

Previously, a single question provided the answer: how satisfied are students with their degree programmes in general? The questionnaire that makes up the National Student Survey was revised following all sorts of controversy, however, and Elsevier seized the opportunity to change its own approach as well.

The magazine now weighs the responses to eleven different questions, says journalist and researcher Ruud Deijkers. This includes the question about general satisfaction, but also questions about student satisfaction with programme content, lecturers, testing, atmosphere and other factors. As a result, he says, the verdict is now somewhat stricter than before.

Gold

A programme receives a gold medal if it scores significantly above average (one standard deviation) on at least eight questions. It must therefore score better overall than other programmes in the same field.

Elsevier provides more detailed information about the programmes online, including the chances of a landing permanent contract after graduation and salary expectations. Also available online are dropout and course completion rates, along with silver-medal winners (above average on six or seven questions) and bronze-medal winners (above average on four or five questions).