What is Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU)

The emergence of global university ranking systems has brought significant transformations not only to developing countries but the world at large in the development of national economies. In view of the relative impact of the global university ranking systems on national economies, the chapter used three foremost global university raking systems: Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings, and Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) World University Rankings known as the big three global university ranking system to evaluate performance of Nigerian universities in their league tables. The analyses indicated abysmal performance of Nigerian universities at the regional and global perspectives. The chapter highlighted issues that would promote global ranking of Nigerian universities in the emerging and globally competitive university systems and concludes that, Nigerian universities and national economies stand to harness the great potentials of the global university ranking systems, if these issues are appropriately tackled.