University rankings: what are they good for?

As the number of global university rankings continues to increase, methodologies are evolving and universities are being offered numerous new ways in which to assess their performance vis a vis national peers and peers around the globe.

One of the main spurs to this proliferation is the emphasis that the Chinese government has put on international rankings as a means of assessing the impact its huge investment in higher education was having on the standing of China’s universities. Given this, it’s not surprising such league tables are having a growing impact on universities and public policy elsewhere.

This has prompted the European University Association (EUA) to issue a second report on ‘Global University Rankings and Their Impact’, with which it aims to ensure that debates about rankings and their uses are well-grounded in reliable information and solid analysis of the methodologies and indicators used.

“We […] hope that our work contributes to making universities and policy makers alike more aware of the potential uses and misuses of rankings,” says Maria Helena Nazaré, EUA President.

Broad impact

Rankings can now be seen to be having an impact in areas including student recruitment, immigration policy, the recognition of qualifications and the choice of university collaboration partners. “Global rankings are no longer a concern only for a small number of elite institutions but have become a reality for a much broader spectrum of universities,” Nazaré said.

Universities are much more actively seeking to be included in, or improve their position in, one or other ranking. “This means [rankings] have started to shape the development of higher education systems,” Nazaré believes.

This is a significant shift, given that most international league tables in their present form include only between 1 – 3 per cent of the 17,500 universities in the world. In the case of EUA, this means they cover only around half its members. “But at the same time, they still impact the rest of the EUA, through the policy influence,” Nazaré says.

There’s another big gap –which is that the main global university rankings still focus principally on research but not able to do justice to research carried out in the area of arts, humanities and social sciences.

Focus and froth

The increasing focus and froth around rankings is also a reflection of the way in which higher education is becoming an increasingly global business, that is valued as much for its contribution to the economy as it is to the body of world knowledge.

Governments are taking an interest because they are keen to see their universities do well, both as a sign of prestige and as a marker of the competitiveness of their economies as a whole.

In short, much rests on rankings – how they are put together, how they are interpreted, how they are deployed – since this feeds through and influences policy in a host of areas, from R&D funding, to the number of students and the disciplines they study, to the merging of institutions to advance in the rankings, and to innovation policy.

Given this, it is important universities understand the degree to which the various rankings are transparent, of the relationship between what is said to be measured and what is in fact being measured, how the scores are calculated and what they mean.

“Looking to the future it is evident that given the increasing internationalisation of higher education and the competitive pressures on institutions, the debate on rankings will continue,” Nazaré said, pledging that EUA will continue to play an active role in discussions and in assessing the impact of ranking on higher education institutions.