International Academics Rankings — Lessons for Universities of Technology

Lvov, 7 November 2014

International academics rankings- lessons for universities of technology

Waldemar Siwiński Perspektywy Education Fundation

IREG Observatory on Academic Rankings and Excellence


Why rankings

Opening question

Can we imagine higher education without university rankings?

How can we best live with them, how do we organize the university’s activities to prevent rankings of having a destructive influence on the life of the university?

How can we make a use of the university rankings in a creative way to improve the functioning of a university, its departments and units?

How in the rankings, especially those international aspire to high positions, how to be succeed?


Why rankings

Future of rankings

Despite their many shortcomings, biases and flaws rankings enjoy a high level of acceptance among

stakeholders and the wider public because of their simplicity and consumer-type information.

Thus, university rankings are not going to disappear; indead, the number of rankings is expected to increase

although they will became more specialised.prof. Andrejs Rauhvargers

from Report for European University Association

Rankings and league tables are here to stay and increasingly impact upon institutional behaviour.

Prof. Helena Nazaré President of the European University Association


Why rankings

What has happend in the last 20 years

Parallel and overlapping processes:

massification of higher education and its internationalization.

It all happens in the era of globalization, the growth of the knowledge based economy and competition for best talent.

There are more and more universities, academic staff and students in the world but in reality, it’s only the best that count. The countries that do not understand that rule will lose in competition with their faster, smarter and more determined counterparts.


Why rankings

Students of the World 2013

4,5 mln internationalstudents

177 mln students totalincl. 2,6% international students


Internationalization

International students 1975 - 2013

Sources: UNESCO


Developing of rankings

Ranking landscape1983. US News & World Report (USA)

1991. Macleans (Canada)

1992. The Times (UK)

1997. CHE Ranking (Germany)

2000. Perspektywy Ranking (Poland)

2003. Shanghai Ranking (China)

2004. Webometrics (Spain)

2004. QS-THES Ranking (UK)

2007. Leiden Ranking (The Netherlands)

2009. URAP Ranking (Turkey)

2014. U-Multirank (EU)2015. ???

National Regional

GlobalBy Subject

Specialized…


Limitation of rankings

Methodological limitations

There can be no such thing as an “objective ranking”.

Every ranking, independent of how and for whom it was made, always contains two subjective elements:

CRITERIA and their PERCENTAGE WEIGHT.

All other factors can be objective and be standardized – methodology of measuring, data verification, mode of presentation – but the choice of criteria and assignment of weight to them will always remain subjective.

A big problem is also the lack of reliable and comparable data on higher education.


Limitation of rankings

Wise man motto

Albert Einstein:

– Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.


Quality in the spotlight

IREG Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellence

Association of ranking organizations, universities and other units. Its goal is the improvement of the quality of international and national ranking of higher education institutions.

And also:

establishing the permanent system of discussion (opened to international community) and evaluation of different rankings,

stimulating the conferences and exchange of ‘good practice’ within the given ranking area of interest.



First General Assembly Meeting, Warsaw 2010



Berlin Principles on Ranking

Be clear about purpose and target groups

Provide clarity about sources

Specify contexts: linguistic, cultural, economic, and historical

Be transparent regarding methodology

Pay due attention to ethical standards and good practice

Use audited and verifiable data

Apply measures of quality assurance



IREG Ranking Audit

The purpose of the IREG Ranking Audit, conducted by independent academic teams, is:

to verify if a ranking under review is done professionally, observes good practices and provides students, their parents and employers with the information allowing them to compare and assess programs offered by higher education institutions.



PerspektywyPerspektywy

First completed audits

QSQS


Awarding ceremony, May 2013Awarding ceremony, May 2013


IREG Activities

IREG Conferences


Invitation to Aalborg 2015

Next IREG Conferences


National rankings

Universities of technology in Poland and Ukraine are on high places in the national rankings of their countries.

Ukraine. According to the “Top-200” ranking in the first 10 best universities there are four technical universities, and 9 are in the top 20.

Poland. In the top 10 best universities in the Perspektywy University Ranking 2014, there are four technical universities, and five in the “top 20”.

Leaders in their country


Ranking „Top-200” (Ukraine)


Perspektywy University Ranking (Poland)


International rankings

Question. What is the position of technical universities of Poland and Ukraine in international rankings?

Answer: None of the of the Polish or Ukrainian make it in to the “magic 500” best schools in the world. According to the unofficial information obtained from the authors of international rankings some of them occasionally appear in places between 500 and 1000. But it will be very difficult for them to advance to the top “500”.

Outside „magic 500”

Poland - Ukraine

Technical Universities Collaboration

November 7, 2014

Scholarly Output

Internationalization

Collaboration and impact

Collaboration Details, Example 1

26

Collaboration Details, Example 2


Result of Scopus analysis

Cooperation pays off

All known cases of successful cooperation of scientists from Poland and Ukraine demonstrate that the citation of joint publications, by average, is twice of the publication by authors of only one university.

Working together on joint publications we can automatically improve position of our universities in the international rankings as citations is the most weighted criterion in all important rankings.

.


Proposal

Towards the new ranking?

If we want to present universities of Ukraine, Poland and other countries of the Continental Europe in a proper context, it is worth considering creation of a European University Ranking in the Field of Technology.

It will not be a very complicated task but one that may prove to be advantageous also in the context of competing for grants in the Horizon 2020 program.


Final remarks

General conclusions

University rankings contribute to the proper functioning of the higher education systems in various countries. As an element of an independent evaluation, they are, along with accreditation and benchmarking, a basic tool assuring the high quality of teaching and research.

Rankings are perhaps imperfect, but very effective tool for comparing universities and quality assurance of higher education.

Rankings may irritate but they cannot be ignored. (Le Monde)


Final remarks

Forum’s Conclusions

We should aim at increasing the number of joint publications of Polish and Ukrainian scientists as citation of such publications is twice as high as citation of works by authors of one university only.

We should consider creation of a European University Ranking in the field of technology as it will allow to show better the strong aspects of Polish and Ukrainian universities, and universities of other European countries as well.

Thank You!

Waldemar Siwiński Fundacja Edukacyjna Perspektywy

IREG Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellence

[email protected]@ireg-observatory.org