Universities, Rankings and the Dynamics of Global Higher Education

Perspectives from Asia, Europe and North America

Hans Peter Hertig

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9781137469984
• eBook ISBN:
  9781137469991
• Topic: Éducation
• Subtopic: Éducation comparative

Global university rankings are now more than a decade old and this book uses the data they have produced to examine how the international landscape of universities has changed over the years. It offers new insights into the power and limits of league tables, a key element of globalized higher education that can be deplored but hardly ignored. Case studies from Asia, Europe and North America are explored to highlight the issues raised by a quantitative exercise that decontextualizes what is linked so strongly to local factors. 

© The Author(s) 2016

Hans Peter HertigUniversities, Rankings and the Dynamics of Global Higher Education10.1057/978-1-137-46999-1_1

Begin Abstract

1. Introduction

Hans Peter Hertig¹

(1)

Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland

End Abstract

Never in the history of higher education has one catchword made more headlines than “university rankings”. It perfectly hits the zeitgeist: everything is ranked these days, from whole countries according to their financial solvency or past performance of their national soccer team, to airlines on the basis of timely departures and lateral seat pitches in business class and to restaurants judging the quality and, a new dimension, the “slowness” of their food. Ranking announcements provide the drama for making it into the newspapers and TV news, where the winners and losers, rising stars and fallen angels, one-hit wonders and also-rans feature. Such stories link to the real lives of readers and viewers, arousing emotions of national pride and local grievance. And they fulfil one of the key requirements for being heard in the digital age: to translate highly complex phenomena into short, simple messages, to provide bite-size information that can be easily digested. What could be more popular and convenient than a single figure that seems to say it all?

While never before has one subject made more headlines in higher education, neither has what it stands for—a single policy instrument evaluating universities and their position in the international scene—so challenged the constituency it was originally developed for. The dilemma it has brought to universities and their stakeholders is obvious. Rankings are riddled with methodological flaws, and although some have been fixed as a result of intense and controversial debates among experts from academia and the rankings’ providers, many questions remain (Soh 2013). And the mathematical soundness of the procedure that leads to a final ranking score is only part of the problem. The spectrum of possible indicators for the strength of universities is extremely broad and the selection and weighting of ranking criteria highly arbitrary. As a result, the verdicts of the different ranking producers differ, and differ strongly, reflecting the huge variety of possible approaches and associated biases regarding scientific disciplines, types of institutions and local contexts in which the institutions act. When the two pioneers of modern rankings, the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), known as the “Shanghai” ranking, and its European counterpart, the Times Higher Education and Quacquarelli Symonds joint World University Rankings (THE-QS), went public in 2003 and 2004, respectively, they immediately triggered the development of alternatives. Some of the products were stunning. Sly developers succeeded in creating rankings that miraculously catapulted the universities of their own country to the top of the list, in the vicinity of giants like Harvard and Cambridge—a perfect demonstration of the flexibility of approach and the potential of interest-laden manoeuvres. And finally, there is the striking lack of transparency. In 2006, an international rankings expert group developed a number of criteria, the so-called Berlin Principles (UNESCO 2006), that if observed would improve the situation. But the main goals of rankings, the production of easy to read and easy to understand league tables and the maintenance of strict academic standards, are hard to reconcile, and because, in addition, many rankings are linked to commercial interests and compete with others for the highest possible number of users, low transparency will most likely remain a perennial topic in the ranking discourse (Berlin Principles or no).

So why, despite all this—a shaky methodology, questions regarding what is really measured and with what effects, and low transparency—are rankings very much alive and flourishing in an environment in which robust, unbiased methods, objectivity and transparency are so highly valued? Why do the ranked play the game?

• Firstly, because they have realized that against all expectations, global rankings have survived the fierce debates and harsh critics over the 10 years of their existence. Their popularity is undiminished; they look stronger than ever.
• Secondly, because important off-campus stakeholders from politics and business use rankings and partially rely on them. They live and work under time constraints and clutch at any straw that saves time-consuming engagement with the bewildering mass of information. Rankings allow them to assess and benchmark the status of a specific institution of higher learning they are interested in via a freely available single indicator.
• Thirdly, because rankings have become the ultimate tool for global branding. To do well in major rankings is key for universities that have decided to go global. Top-ranking positions attract high-performing students for master’s and PhD programmes, world-class faculty and additional funding from public and non-public sources.
• Fourthly, because rankings, despite all the question marks, represent a handy internal tool. They support a school’s governance and strategy units in their benchmarking and controlling exercises. And they offer short cuts for the decision-making of deans and institute directors when it comes to evaluating the quality and potential of not very well known foreign universities in the process of hiring academic staff or finding cooperation partners.
• Finally, because the community is divided. The well ranked, at least the well ranked by the most prestigious league tables, have no reason to attack what serves their cause: to show to the world that they belong to the exclusive group of world leaders. The others, the not so well ranked, are obliged to moderate their criticism. Resistance from their side is easily considered the reaction of bad losers and may back-fire.

In sum: rankings offer a package of pragmatic and opportunistic reasons that outweighs the academic conscience of the ranked and a structural division that hinders the building of a united front. The ranked make the best of it, and the rankings are obviously here to stay.

It is with these dilemmas and concerns in mind—the obvious schizophrenia of condemning an instrument and at the same time using it and acknowledging the status and power it has—that I have researched the rankings field in an attempt to further illuminate and better understand the dynamics of higher education in today’s globalized world. It is not a book about rankings per se. Others have done this job. After a slow start and a narrow focus on methodological questions, the last years have brought an avalanche of articles, monographs and readers on the topic. Specifically, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and international organizations in the field of higher education or touched by it—the World Bank; United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO); Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD); European Commission (EC); and European University Association (EUA)—have made considerable efforts to illuminate the subject. They have mobilized specialists on higher education from around the globe who themselves followed with their own contributions and helped to create a community of experts, such as Jamil Salmi (2009), Philip Altbach et al. (2009), Philip Altbach and Salmi (2011), Andrejs Rauhvargers (2011, 2013), Simon Marginson (2010) and Ellen Hazelkorn (2011), who, finally, may now outnumber the rankings on the market. As a result, we now have not only a complete list of the existing rankings—the methodologies behind them, their objectives and their strengths and weaknesses—but also a pretty good understanding of their obvious and potential impact on the various aspects of globalized higher education (GHE) with respect to strategy, management and governance. We are aware of the potential implications for the different stakeholders in the different economic and political contexts in which they act. And we know the challenges the race for world-class science brings to countries that have the will but not the means to become serious competitors.

At least, we think we know. Because while the topics that were taken up and discussed in recent literature on rankings are highly relevant and the conclusions drawn by authors and commentators make perfect sense, empirical evidence is still relatively shaky and thin. It is true that the first truly comprehensive examination of the ranking phenomenon, Ellen Hazelkorn’s Rankings and the Reshaping of Higher Education (2011), is partially based on empirical material. For years, Hazelkorn toured the globe interviewing representatives of the various stakeholders—university heads, policy makers and students. But most of the information she collected illustrates and witnesses her observations and conclusions rather than empirically hardening them in a systematic way. And the one exception that encompasses more than single university systems, the pooling via on-line questionnaires of 639 higher education institutions in 41 countries, not only suffers from a low response rate (32 %) but is more than nine years old; an eternity in the fast moving rankings business. We know that in 2006 58 % of higher education leaders were dissatisfied with their current ranking and 71 % aspired to a position in the top 25 % of international league tables. But would these results be the same today, with a rankings business that is fully institutionalized and much more comprehensive? In the meantime, some have manifested their displeasure, refusing to deliver the figures they were asked for and deliberately dropping out of the rankings. Others have adapted their university’s research portfolio to a more ranking friendly profile. How has the hype about rankings of recent years influenced the opinions and the attitudes of the ranked? How do they digest eventual “bad news” regarding their development signalled in ranking series? Inevitably, most of those who were dreaming of a place in the sun have been disappointed; with what effect? How powerful is the new dimension in the ranking game: league tables as a mirror for change?

This is where the present study kicks in. Its goal is to provide empirically supported answers to questions like the above, particularly the ones on the dynamics of the interrelationship between universities and the environment in which they act, globalized higher education. What makes these answers possible is an anniversary. Not mine, but the one of what has become a key player in GHE and a tool a study on change can hardly live without; rankings. In 2014, one of the two pioneers of what can be called the modern generation of rankings, THE-QS, split in two different rankings, THE and QS, after 2009, celebrated its tenth anniversary. Together with ARWU, the Shanghai ranking that was first published a year before, the two rankings have passed their first decade. Ten years, even when considering the small methodological changes introduced by the rankings providers during this period, present quite a robust database. It allows us to (carefully) examine one of the most relevant and intriguing aspects of GHE manifested by leagues tables: changes regarding the status and prestige of universities in the international scene over time, the gain or loss of ground in the race for global competitiveness. What is behind the rise and fall of universities? What makes a previously unremarkable institution transform into a leading university of a nation, if not the world? Why does another school, one that has been a high performer in the past, has produced dozens of Nobel laureates and immediately comes to mind if one is asked to link a specific country with a prestigious university, lose significant ground? What or who is to praise or to blame: governance, structural or organizational reforms, new research priorities, different recruitment policies, changes in the environment in which the institution acts, additional funding? Is the university paying the price for missed opportunities of the past? Is what could look to an outside observer like an enduring structural weakness or the result of a series of wrong decisions nothing more than a temporary underachievement resulting from future-oriented (and wise) strategic decisions? Is a spectacular leap forward, on the other hand, the result of unsustainable measures, likely to fizzle out within a few years? And to what extent are such actions a result of the instruments that measure and indicate eventual problems and achievements; the rankings?

Obviously, these questions differ markedly in nature and to tackle them calls for a mix of different empirical approaches. Some answers can be provided via quantitative analysis by confronting the success or failure of individual institutions with context variables, such as the country in which they act. But for many others, this will not suffice. The quantitative approach has to be completed with a more in-depth, qualitative inquiry, provided by case studies. Linking the two, providing the data that makes the tandem possible, are rankings. They are the source in identifying “rise and fall” and in hunting for correlations with contextual variables, and at the same time they allow us to select promising case studies. The two approaches, quantitative and qualitative, and the key role of rankings for both of them structure the book. It contains eight chapters. In Chap. 2, I discuss the main challenges globalization has brought to higher education’s main actors, universities; define the conditions that must be fulfilled to successfully compete as a world-class research university (WCRU) with the best of the best in the world; and show the impact of rankings on the WCRUs and why ignoring them is not an option. Chapter 3 deals with these rankings, but only regarding their potential and limits for how they are used in the present study—as an instrument to manifest change and to reveal winners and losers in the international race for prestigious positioning over time. And I briefly discuss the methodology used in the second empirical part of the book; the case studies. Chapter 4 contains the quantitative analysis of 171 Asian, European and North American universities out of the 200 universities in THE-QS’s first edition, from 2004. Where do they stand 10 years later according to the two pioneers of global ranking, ARWU and THE-QS? Does the way they developed hint at a specific areal pattern; do some countries offer better conditions for their aspiring universities than others? In Chap. 5 I use the main outcome of the quantitative analysis performed in Chap. 4, the ranking of the ranked—shortlists of universities on the rise or fall in Asia, Europe and North America—as a pre-selection tool for the case studies. Within the six shortlists—fall and rise in three continents—I apply additional criteria for the final selection of 10 case studies: size, comprehensiveness, legal form, location but also practical considerations like travel logistics (or, more to the point, my project budget). At the heart of the case studies are semi-structured interviews with the heads of the selected universities plus their collaborators in charge of quality assessment. I confronted them with what I had found in the rankings regarding their performance over the last decade, thus rationalizing how they had been selected for the project in the first place. How did they react, regarding rankings in general and what they indicate about their university in particular? How did they explain eventual discrepancies? What relevant factors in their specific development were not taken into account in the rankings? And to what extent does what the rankings indicate influence future strategic considerations and decisions? But behind the interviews was more than just getting answers to these questions. Visiting the location, the campus and the president’s office, observing, talking to people, in an organized way and ad hoc, allowed me to get a feel of the place, to catch its mood, so to speak, and to add a dimension one cannot arrive at via simple desk research. I used it together with all the other findings of the quantitative and qualitative analyses provided in Chaps. 4 and 5 to tackle the main question of the present study in a synthesizing Chap. 6: what makes universities rise or fa...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Frontmatter
• 1. Introduction
• 2. Universities and Rankings in Globalized Higher Education
• 3. Tools to Capture and Measure the Rise and Fall of Universities
• 4. Winners and Losers According to Rankings
• 5. A Closer Look at the Ranked: 10 Case Studies in Asia, Europe and North America
• 6. Why Do Universities Rise and Fall? The Crucial Factors
• 7. Going Back to the Source: A Second Look at Rankings
• 8. Outlook
• Backmatter