A new report that ranks higher education systems has ranked Denmark fifth out of 48 countries.

The report, which was jointly developed by an organisation called Universitas 21 and the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economics and Social Research, assessed the countries using a mechanism that rated 20 different criteria within four main categories: resources, environment, connectivity and output.

The resource category was gauged by investment by the public and private sector in higher education. Output was measured in terms of the supply of educated workers in keeping with market demand. Connectivity was rated by international co-operation regard, such as the number of international students, while the environment category was determined by transparency, regulation and participation.

Denmark ranked second out of the 48 nations in resources, sixth in output, twelfth in connectivity, but an average score within the category of environment set the overall score at fifth.

Additionally, Denmark finished third in number of academic articles published per capita and they also finished third in how much of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) the government spends on higher education.

The report concluded by indicating that more work needs to be done to accurately rate countries with very large populations.

“Does China need to match on a population basis the number of world class universities in the Nordic countries? Each of the four Nordic countries has roughly one world-class university,” The report concluded. “To match this on a population basis, China would need over 1,300 such institutions! Economies of scale exist for systems as they do for institutions.”

The United States finished at the top of the overall rankings, followed by Sweden, Canada, Finland and Denmark.