Maribor fared better in the magazine's latest rankings, being listed in the 501-600 category, while Ljubljana got the 601-800 ranking.

A total of 1,100 universities were being assessed for the World University Rankings 2015-2016 and 800 picked. First place went to the California Institute of Technology, second place to Oxford and third to Stanford.

The report describes the Maribor University as having 14,531 students, 4% of which are foreign. The figures for Ljubljana are 48,821 and 4%.

Maribor University Chancellor Igor Tičar described the news as "encouragement to do an even better job in the future".

Being judged in the rankings is the performance of universities across all of their core missions - teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook. The rankings employ 13 calibrated performance indicators.