Launch event - University rankings
24 June 2010
On Wednesday 23 June 2010, the League of European Research Universities presented its new advice paper 'University rankings: Diversity, excellence and the European initiative’.
International rankings of universities influence the perceptions and priorities of governments, of businesses and students. Rectors and university councils see the achievement of high ranking as a strategic imperative. However, their value and benefits are questionable. One fundamental defect stems from the fact that most rankings seek to capture characteristics that cannot be measured directly, and require indirect proxies. Moreover, different universities fulfill different roles, which a single monotonic scale cannot capture.
Despite these and other defects, rankings continue to have such a hold on the public imagination that they are likely to become permanent features of the landscape. Two recent initiatives funded by the European Commission (U-Map and U-Multirank) represent a novel approach by attempting to map the diversity of Europe’s universities and by ranking their performance in multiple dimensions of excellence. Although LERU applauds the attempt, there are both principled and practical reasons for being sceptical about the ultimate validity and utility of rankings.
Prof. Geoffrey Boulton (Universityof Edinburgh), main author of the paper, presented LERU’s views on the potential benefits, difficulties and dangers inherent in classifying and ranking universities. His presentation was followed by responses from Prof. Frans van Vught (CHEPS), Mr. Robin van Yperen (European Commission) and Prof. Hans Stoof (Universiteit Utrecht).
After the presentation and responses, there was time for questions from the audience.
You can download the paper on our publications' page.
