Measured, and Found Wanting More

By Phil Baty, in Times Higher Education

International comparisons of universities still have their detractors, but the appetite for them continues to grow. Phil Baty traces their roots and looks at how they are increasing in number and quality, while Ellen Hazelkorn considers their impact and value

Marginson believes that rankings are “changing history, not just in higher education, but in all the social, economic, cultural and governmental sectors affected by higher education. In other words, the ranking systems – and the single worldwide higher education sector they embody and create – will change almost every sphere of human activity.”

So, anyone who thinks that university rankings are a bit of fun – an inherently shallow service to student consumers good only for selling newspapers – may need to think again. It is not only students, parents and university marketing staff who are taking them seriously.

The rise of global rankings has transformed higher education for ever,” says Simon Marginson, professor of higher education at the University of Melbourne.

For Marginson, rankings are “creating one single worldwide research-university sector, which provides the basis for a one-world knowledge system and, ultimately, a single world culture – in which diversity will continue to abound, but held within one container”.

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