Transforming Higher Education in Whose Image? Exploring the Concept of the ‘World-Class’ University in Europe and Asia (original) (raw)

2015. Globalization and global university rankings

Second International Handbook on Globalisation, Education and Policy Research, 2015

Globalization has been neither neutral nor uniform in its impact. It affects countries, cultures, and systems in different ways—some in positive ways and others in more negative ways. All sectors of society are being affected; and higher education is no exception. The increased importance of the knowledge industry, innovations in information and communication technologies, a stronger orientation to the market economy, and growth in regional and international governance systems all contribute to an accelerated flow of people, ideas, culture, technology, goods, and services in our globalized world. University documents and mission statements indicate the importance of higher education in the global arena. A number of issues link globalization and higher education, including a growing demand for post-secondary education, a growing number and types of “for-profit” sponsors of higher education, and the emergence of innovative cross-border institutions. As globalization has become the focal point of higher education, competition has become a central preoccupation. Competition is closely connected with a global free-market economy. Combined with the impact of globalization and the development of the global “knowledge economy,” these competitive forces have resulted in the global competition phenomenon that is currently reshaping higher education. Many developments characterize global competition in higher education. This paper discusses some of these developments, including (1) the rise of global university rankings, (2) declarations by nations to have a world-class university, (3) the development of regional units of control and reform, (4) the development of cross-border quality assessment practices, and (5) the internationalization of universities.

University Rankings, Global Models, and Emerging Hegemony

Journal of Studies in International Education, 2009

The study analyzes how the emergence of dominant models in higher education and power they embody affect non-Western, non-English language universities such as those in Japan. Based on extended micro-level participant observation in a Japanese research university aspiring to become a “world-class” institution, their struggles and the quest for new identities are examined. The prevalent and oft-referenced university rankings and league tables give rise to de facto global standards and models, against which traditions of national language education and research as well as self-sustenance in human resources are challenged and tested. Such new modes of objectifying academic excellence alter domestic academic hierarchies and internal dynamics within universities. This study uses these insights to look critically at new dimensions of knowledge construction and an emerging hegemony in today's global higher education context.

Developing Universities as World-Class Institutions

In recent years, international ranking of universities has become a more systemic and systematic exercise. As ranking systems mature and develop solutions and metrics; more and more institutions across Asia are gearing up towards the ranking exercise. This activity has also been accompanied by privatisation and corporatisation of universities. For institutions aiming to develop excellence with a goal-oriented, systemic, and process-driven approach, engagement with a University Ranking Exercise can be immensely fruitful. Institutions need to identify a URS that they can comfortably align with and then concentrate on evaluation indicators as suggested by the URS. This should be followed by exercises to gain international recognition. The need for improvement of documentation gets crucial at this juncture. Institutions need to develop documentation of transparent practices in all areas of administration, teaching, research, and extension activities.

The Paradox of the Global University

Evaluating Education: Normative Systems and Institutional Practices, 2020

No university of ambition officially claims to be local. Touting international reach and reputation is a nearly essential feature of university strategic planning worldwide. Yet being a global university is paradoxical. Academic institutions historically are servants of particular cities, regions, and nations, and one of their essential functions has been to connect particular places with world affairs. International rankings regimes, the search for tuition revenue among schools in a few large markets, and the remarkable consistency with which nations pursue status through higher education: all of these deepen the implication of universities in the fate and future of particular locales.

Welcome to the World Class University: Introduction

Evaluating Education: Normative Systems and Institutional Practices

The notion of World Class Universities, and the use of rankings in general, has been an object of study for decades. Perhaps the first major critical work was Ellen Hazelkorn’s Rankings and the reshaping of higher education: The battle for world-class excellence (2011). Just as the influence of rankings shows no sign of abating, neither does the impetus to provide practical proposals for how to use them to advantage, or, alternatively, to examine the sources and effects of the practices involved. Recent interventions belonging to the first category are Downing and Ganotice’s World university rankings and the future of higher education (2017), while Stack’s Global university rankings and the mediatization of higher education (2016) and Hazelkorn’s Global rankings and the geopolitics of higher education: Understanding the influence and impact of rankingson higher education, policyand society (2016) are notable examples of the latter. The essays presented in the present volume are inte...

World Class Universities, Rankings and the Global Space of International Students

Evaluating Education: Normative Systems and Institutional Practices, 2020

The notion of World Class University suggests that this category of universities operates at a global and not national level. The rankings that have made this notion recognised are global in their scope, ranking universities on a worldwide scale and feed an audience from north to south, east to west. The very idea of ranking universities on such a scale, it is argued here, must be understood in relation to the increasing internationalisation and marketisation of higher education and the creation of a global market for higher education. More precisely, this contribution links the rankings of world class universities to the global space of international student flows. This space has three distinctive poles, a Pacific pole (with the US as the main country of destination and Asian countries as the most important suppliers of students), a Central European one (European countries of origin and destination) and a French/Iberian one (France and Spain as countries of destination with former ...

World University Rankings and the Future of Higher Education

ABSTRACT The ranking of higher education institutions is a growing phenomenon around the world, with ranking systems in place in more than 40 countries. The emergence of world ranking systems that compare higher education institutions across national boundaries and the proliferation of these since the past decade, are indeed a reality now, and are already exerting substantial influence on both short and long term developments of higher education institutions. Rankings are being used by a variety of stakeholders for different purposes. Rankings are no doubt, useful for fostering institutional strategic planning and management, and their communication externally as well as their own institutional community and the national interest.