Ranking World Universities: A Decade of Refinement, and the Road Ahead

Background To Rankings

Bohr’s principles of correspondence and complementarity hallmarked the scientific adventure into the unity of human knowledge, a place where the development of methods of ordering and surveying human experience was not without paradox. The chief paradox which faces rankings is that a university is a fundamentally complex construct, with a unique blend of assets and strengths which emerge through socio-historical, socio-economic and geo-political influences. These can all be both complementary and contradictory, yet ultimately they are necessary to ascertain that very thing which we call ‘universities’. Policies and the peoples they address, shape nations and the world, and these also define the identities of institutions. The biography of an institution, and its destiny, thus unfolds through a series of factors which, to be truly understood, require comparison and measurement: the hallmarks of scientific method and historical enquiry.

The interrogation of what, precisely, represents quality for a university has escalated dramatically over the past fifteen years, and relevant data has emerged through a complexity of factors. This has informed a sophisticated and rich discussion. At the same time, it has spawned a great number of new initiatives within institutions or departments, at a group or national level, and in both a regional and a global context.