Rankings and the battle for world-class excellence: Institutional strategies and policy choices (original) (raw)

Rankings and the Reshaping of Higher Education: The Battle for World-Class Excellence

2011

University rankings have gained popularity around the world and are now a significant factor shaping reputation. This second edition updates Ellen Hazelkorn's first comprehensive study of rankings from a global perspective, drawing in new original research and extensive analysis. It is essential reading for policymakers, managers and scholars.

World-class Universities or World-class Systems: Rankings and Higher Education Policy Choices

In today’s world, it has become all too familiar for policymakers and higher education leaders to identify and define their ambitions and strategies in terms of a favourable global ranking for their universities/university. But, is it always a good thing for a university to rise up the rankings and break into the top 100? How much do we really know and understand about rankings and what they measure? Do rankings raise standards by encouraging competition or do they undermine the broader mission of universities to provide education? Can rankings measure the quality of education? Should students use rankings to help them choose where to study? Should rankings be used to help decide education policies and the allocation of scarce resources? Are rankings an appropriate guide for employers to use when recruiting new employees? Should higher education policies aim to develop world-class universities or to make the system world-class? This chapter discusses the rising attention accorded to...

Measuring World-class Excellence and the Global Obsession with Rankings

Handbook on Globalization and Higher Education, 2011

Putting rankings into context The obsession with global rankings has reached almost fever pitch in recent years. Politicians, university leaders, students, business leaders, and media headline writers alike monitor rankings; conferences on rankings are held around the world attracting delegates from many countries; hundreds of academic and newspaper articles and opinion pieces, blogs, and commentary have been published; and many governments and higher education institutions (HEI) have redrafted their strategies to conform to the indicators identified by rankings. The language of rankings has entered public discourse and impregnated policy documents and statements drafted by a wide array of international, national, regional, and local stakeholders. What began as a consumer-oriented guide for students and parents has been transformed into a rapidly-expanding global intelligence information business. By 2011 there will be eleven different global rankings, and in Simon Marginson, Rajani Naidoo and Roger King (eds), A Handbook on Globalization and Higher Education, Edward Elgar, 2011. 2 over fifty national rankings. Few corners of the globe appear immune from the frenzy that university rankings have created. Published by, inter alia, government and accreditation agencies, higher education, research and commercial organizations, and the popular media, rankings have become ubiquitous. The number of different rankings has risen sharply and, arguably inevitably, since 2003 for four main interrelated reasons.  First, it is now widely recognized that knowledge is the cornerstone of economic growth and national security; it is the new crude oil. This has driven the transformation of economies and the basis of wealth production from those based on productivity and efficiency to those based on higher-valued goods and services innovated by talent. In a globalized world nations increasingly compete on the basis of their knowledge and innovation systems (Slaughter and Leslie 1997). Because higher education is an important producer of new knowledge, its contribution to economic growth is very significant. It is rightly regarded as "the engine of development in the new world economy" (Castells 1994: 14). Accordingly, measuring and comparing higher education has become a vital sign of a country"s capacity to participate in world science and attract international talent and investment capital.

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.

To Rank or To Be Ranked: The Impact of Global Rankings in Higher Education

Journal of Studies in International Education, 2007

Global university rankings have cemented the notion of a world university market arranged in a single "league table" for comparative purposes and have given a powerful impetus to intranational and international competitive pressures in the sector. Both the research rankings by Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the composite rankings by the Times Higher Education Supplement have been widely publicised and already appear to have generated incentives in favour of greater system stratification and the concentration of elite researchers. However, global comparisons are possible only in relation to one model of institution, that of the comprehensive research intensive university, and for the most part are tailored to science-strong and Englishspeaking universities. Neither the Shanghai nor the Times rankings provide guidance on the quality of teaching. It is important to secure "clean" rankings, transparent, free of self-interest, and methodologically coherent, that create incentives to broadbased improvement.

How Rankings are Reshaping Higher Education

2013

More than two decades after US News and World Report first published its special issue on "America's Best Colleges" and almost a decade since Shanghai Jiao Tong University published the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), university rankings continue to dominate headlines for several reasons. First, they present a simple and easy comparison of educational performance and productivity nationally and across international boundaries. Second, by drawing attention to the characteristics and performance of the top universities world-wide, rankings have become a major tool for measuring educational quality and excellence. This is true for HEIs but also for nations. And, third, given the importance of higher education to social and economic growth and prosperity, especially in these difficult times, rankings are often interpreted as an indicator of a nation's global competitiveness.