Audit Culture and Academic Production: Re-Shaping Australian Social Science Research Output (1993–2013) (original) (raw)

There is little doubt that ranking regimes have transformed the world of contemporary higher education, and reshaped higher education institutions. The proliferation of such regimes is one index of an increasing obsession with their use as an instrument of policy, and force for institutional reform. While the impressively parochial, and quixotically-named US News and World Report hasranked US institutions for 30 years or so, later and more global ranking regimes such as the influential Shanghai Jiaotong's Academic Ranking of World Universities, The Times Higher Education World University Rankings, and QS were only instituted around 2003 and 2004. 1 Further proliferation of indices followed-the 1 In recognition of the need for a more global perspective, and response to an increasing trend for US students to spend time studying abroad, US News began publishing its Best Global Universities ranking in 2014.