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‘World class universities’ (WCU) are an issue of intense debate among the academic community. To define a WCU supposes that only those universities that fit the ‘quality’ criteria established under benchmarking conditions can be considered as such. The good news is that several dimensions could be used to defined excellence, not only classical academic and research criteria. This paper intends to address conceptual aspects of WCU with regard to relations between university ‘mission’ development and why, how and when an institution is considered a WCU from non‐classical criteria. The main purpose of this paper is to propose new dimensions to rank University Missions. Going beyond teaching and research, the University Third Mission – services to Society – has at least 3 dimensions: a non profit – social – approach; an entrepreneur focus; and an innovative approximation. This paper will consider the various implications that a third mission measurement and benchmark could introduce in the controversial ranki...

Since the mid 1990s of last Century, university rankings have become very popular in China. Six institutions have published such rankings; some of them have also detailed their ranking methodologies. This paper features a general introduction to university ranking in China, and to the methodologies of each ranking discussed. The paper also addresses the characteristics inherent to Chinese university rankings.

This paper presents key new developments in the THES – QS World University Rankings in 2007, related to enhancements to the Peer Review, Data Collection and Statistical Aggregation utilised in this ranking as well as discussing the decision to utilise Full‐Time Equivalent (FTE) figures for personnel statistics. Indicator correlation is also discussed as well as the role/purpose of the rankings. The paper reflects a continuing effort to refine the measures used in the ranking, QS have recommended some subtle but significant changes to both the methodology and the data collection approach that have been embraced by THES and will have an impact on 2007 results and beyond in order to reach some measure of understanding the relative quality of different higher education institutions around the world.

University rankings often include surveys that involve self‐assessments, but little is known about the effects of these self‐assessments on results. This paper tests for the existence of leniency effects and differential leniency effects, terms borrowed from the performance assessment literature, with a data set of ratings and rankings of Australian university disciplines by Australian academics. It finds support for the leniency effect – these academics rate and rank their own universities higher than others do. It finds less support, however, for the differential leniency effect – academics at the lower‐rated universities do not seem to overrate their universities more than do academics from the higher‐rated universities. 1. The author would like to thank Ross Williams, Eric R.A.N. Smith, Dean Goodman, and Roger Wilkins for their comments on drafts of this article.

‘Classification’ and ‘ranking’ are tools for comparing colleges and universities, albeit for different purposes. Although ‘classification’ focuses on identifying similarities rather than ordering institutions, it is closely intertwined with ‘ranking’, whether directly through its content, structure, and procedures, or indirectly through the ways it is used and understood by the wider community of users (e.g., researchers, policymakers, institutional leaders, etc.). For this reason, many of the standards, protocols, and best practices established for ranking systems apply as well to the case of classification. This paper examines the interplay between ‘classification’ and ‘ranking’ in some detail, and applies the Berlin Principles on Ranking of Higher Education Institutions which were adopted in May 2006 to the case of classification, focusing on the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education.

In 2004 the Slovak Academic Ranking and Rating Agency (ARRA) was established as an independent body with the main goal of comparing the performance and quality of Slovak higher education institutions (HEIs) and providing the general public, the academic sector, and the government with an independent view of the quality of the country's HEIs. The first two rankings were published in 2005 and 2006 and the latest one was published at the end of 2007. The twenty public universities and their ninety‐nine faculties were ranked in clusters according to the Frascati Manual. This paper describes the methodology and indicators used in this ranking exercise.

Rankings of universities that are based on aggregate measures ignore the discipline coverage within institutions. In this paper, for each of Australia's thirty‐seven public universities, performance in research and teaching in broad discipline groups is evaluated and then aggregated up to obtain whole‐of‐institution rankings. Relative staff numbers are used as weights to aggregate research performance; student numbers are used to weight teaching performance. The performance attributes chosen are those that contribute to international academic standing. We find that the rankings of the Australian National University (ANU) and some technologically oriented universities are raised when scope is allowed for, but elsewhere the changes are minor. 1. I am greatly indebted to Emayenesh Seyoum and Carol Smith for assistance with preparation of the data sets and to the Department of Education, Science and Training and the Graduate Careers Council of Australia for the provision of data.

This paper addresses one of the weaknesses of many rankings – the exclusion of the Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences (HASS) from university and discipline cluster ranking systems and examines some ways in which this situation can be corrected. In particular, it traces the development of indicators such as ‘target expanded’ citation analysis and tiering or ranking of outlets, including books and conferences as well as journals. It draws on experience in Australia, especially with the attempt to construct consensually derived tiered outlets for numerous disciplines including those in HASS in the context of the introduction of a new Research Quality Framework along the lines of similar exercises in the United Kingdom, New Zealand, and Hong Kong.

How influential has the US News Best Colleges ranking been over the last twenty‐five years since it was first started in 1983? In what ways does this influence manifest itself? There is strong evidence of the impact of the US News rankings among consumers, prospective students and their parents, and the higher education establishment in the United States. Their influence has now gone global since the US News rankings, according to some, have been the model for what has become a worldwide trend. This paper will look at all of these effects.

The paper intends to contribute to the debate on ranking and league tables by adopting a critical approach to ranking methodologies from the point of view of a university benchmarking exercise. The absence of a strict benchmarking exercise in the ranking process has been, in the opinion of the author, one of the major problems encountered in the ranking systems and procedures at all levels, regional, national and international. The benchmarking exercise of ten Canadian research intensive universities at the departmental level should contribute to a re‐examination of the typology of the world class ranking systems and suggest reconstruction paths on several major issues.

Whereas most ranking schemes aim at the identification of the universally best performing universities, value‐driven rankings take a focused perspective: they aim at monitoring the progress of some kind of societal agenda based on social values and hence look for progress concerning specific educational contents. The emerging field of education for sustainable development provides a good case for studying evaluation criteria of a value‐based ranking. This paper proposes a framework for a stakeholder‐based university evaluation and maps the territory of rankings addressing sustainable development. Finally a complementing evaluation is proposed to address identified shortcomings.

This article describes the methodical problems of the ranking of Russian universities by the independent ranking agency RatER1. The main features of this ranking system are public estimations of the quality of the higher education in Russia. The results of the sociological study were processed by the original statistical methods. The procedure involves the opinions of the graduate students, teaching staff, employers and independent experts. The interviews show the current state of the education system in different regions of the Russian Federation. The paper also attempts to provide some recommendations for the development of the proposed ranking method. 1. ‘RatER’ is the English abbreviation for Rating of Educational Resources – an Independent Ranking Agency in the Russian Federation.

This article describes two recent efforts to rank the quality of higher education institutions in Australia and New Zealand. After a brief discussion of goals, methods, and results, the author evaluates each ranking using the following questions: Does this methodological approach achieve its objective? Can other countries use the methodology by extension? What can we learn about a country's higher education system using this approach? The aim is to provide readers with a framework for thinking critically about rankings, and about the role they might play in measuring and influencing higher education quality on a global scale. 1. This article is based on a paper given at the first working group meeting for the project, “Higher Education Ranking Systems and Methodologies: How They Work, What They Do”, organized by the Institute for Higher Education Policy and the UNESCO‐European Centre for Higher Education, Washington D.C., U.S.A., 10–11 December, 2004. The author acknowledges with gratitude the Spencer Fou...