Ranking the World’s Universities: What it means for your institution’s future Martin Ince Taipei, Taiwan March 24, 2011 Martin Ince Communications Limited

…. about me Founder of these rankings at THES Now with QS rankings system Science and education journalist Rough Guide to the Earth Media adviser and trainer Find me at Martin Ince Communications Limited

Not such a new idea… Norrington Table 1963 US News and World Report 1983 Times GUG, Macleans, many others All these are data-rich 18 main columns in USN Martin Ince Communications Limited

Why international ranking? Universities the original global industry Now 3.3 of 150 million students study abroad (OECD 2010) Four of the five flows: people, money, ideas, services, goods Martin Ince Communications Limited

Why rank universities globally? Growing student numbers Globalisation of knowledge Competition Marketisation Rankings drive this process as well as measuring it Martin Ince Communications Limited

Global Universities Recruit staff and students globally Publish globally important research Attract global employers Are thought leaders in their own countries and internationally Martin Ince Communications Limited

How many world universities? From Anthony van Raan, CWST, Leiden University, Netherlands Martin Ince Communications Limited

So how do we do rank universities? What happens in a university? With luck, some of these – Teaching Research Mind expansion Creation of useful people We measure them half by expert review and half by quantitative analysis Martin Ince Communications Limited

We believe…. Academics know about universities So do employers So we ask them Martin Ince Communications Limited

10 Academic Respondents by Faculty Area Faculty Area Count % Respondents Arts & Humanities 3, % Engineering & IT 3, % Life Sciences & Biomedicine 1, % Natural Sciences 3, % Social Sciences 4, % * Respondents can select more than one faculty area

Martin Ince Communications Limited 11 Employers: 5007 in 2010

Biggest ever opinion poll 20,057 people 185,669 valid votes 40 per cent for the academic review 10 per cent for the employers This is the qualitative side of the survey Martin Ince Communications Limited

Teaching and learning Staff/student Admit this is less satisfactory OK in a big general institution Other attempts to be discussed 20 per cent for this Martin Ince Communications Limited

Research Citations/ 5 years Scopus (formerly Thomson) Per person, not per paper Another 20 per cent Well-known biases Science English Getting better over time (Unesco) Martin Ince Communications Limited

International commitment Is this place serious about being global? Is it somewhere people will cross oceans to study or work at 5 per cent staff, 5 per cent students Netherlands effect Martin Ince Communications Limited

Things that don’t work Course costs Library spending Employment Teaching quality Completion and employment Wealth Martin Ince Communications Limited

Consistency Eight years in 2011 Add employer data Switch from Thomson Reuters to Elsevier Z-score not anithmetical Data now very complete Institutions value this We will continue to do it Martin Ince Communications Limited

Faculty-level Arts and humanities Science Biomedicine Technology Social Sciences Top 100 Also citations/paper Martin Ince Communications Limited

And the winner is… Usually Harvard But this time Cambridge Top non-English ETH at US in top 200, 30 UK BUT there are 33 nations in the top 200 Netherlands, Australia China on the up, 6/200 plus five in Hong Kong SAR Taiwan 2/200, NTU 94, National Tsing Hua 196 Nine in top 500 Martin Ince Communications Limited

Other approaches Shanghai: since 2003 Nobel Prizes Fields Medals Science and Nature Highly cited Citations Per capita Overlap 142/200 with QS in 2010 Martin Ince Communications Limited

HEEACT Since 2007 Number of papers Impact of papers Martin Ince Communications Limited

Some others Asian University Rankings Hong Kong, HKUST, NUS Third edition in May 2011 Webometrics – online visibility Ecole des Mines Scimago Various mashups Martin Ince Communications Limited

THE Attempt to measure teaching Quantitative + survey Industrial income 2.5 per cent International staff and students Research Impact Research reputation Opinion 34.5 Research Martin Ince Communications Limited

Coming next AHELO CHERPA UNU/ Buffalo/ Scopus Developing world Martin Ince Communications Limited

QS subject rankings 30+ initial subjects Academic review Citations Employer review Weighting will vary Will develop in future years Start with engineering and technology, World Class April 2 Martin Ince Communications Limited

QS Stars Reflect institutional diversity Points for research quality, graduate employment, teaching quality and infrastructure But also for international mission, third mission, knowledge transfer and specialist subject rank Not a ranking More at Martin Ince Communications Limited

Students and their advisors 500,000 unique visitors to topuniversities.com in first week Over five million people have looked at them Polling confirms that students use rankings But only part of the picture Martin Ince Communications Limited

University managers Are we there? Who else is there? Up or down? What sort of university is this Being there, being where? Target setting Martin Ince Communications Limited

Governments Germany: Excellence Initiative €2.9 billion ($4 billion) France Malaysia Japan Brunei Netherlands Martin Ince Communications Limited

Universities Many want to be in top 100 Red Queen syndrome Especially in Asia Drive towards English language Drive towards concentration of national systems Middle East innovation, KAUST et al Martin Ince Communications Limited

The future It won’t go away More systems More examination – IREG initiative Martin Ince Communications Limited

Things rankings don’t capture Teaching and the student experience Creation of human capital Valuable citizens Life tracking? Again risks western chauvinism Martin Ince Communications Limited

Institutional variation About 4000 universities Can’t all be Yale Modern economy needs full range of people So other types of institution will remain valid Time and money Martin Ince Communications Limited

.... Innovation International campuses Collaboration and joint degrees For-profit universities Universities as validators Distance learning Martin Ince Communications Limited

Texture Subjects QS and Shanghai faculty level QS to go deeper CHE European subject data AHELO and CHERPA Engineering and economics Bound to be more detail More valuable for governments, students, business and managers Martin Ince Communications Limited

The summary Rankings are valuable They show Heisenberg’s principle in action They will grow in importance They will grow in variety and quality You cannot let them tell you what your university should be: that is what you are paid for Governments should also appreciate this Martin Ince Communications Limited

Thank you QS colleagues in London and Asia Elsevier for their contribution to the rankings You for your attention and for this invitation Martin Ince Communications Limited