Sunday, January 10, 2010

The European Union Rankings

The European Union is trying to develop a new ranking system to rival the existing ones. The motivation is fairly transparent. The object, as reported in the EUObserver is "to improve the ranking of European universities and improve Europe's economic power".

The EUObserver provides an excellent and succinct summary of the forces underlying the universities ranking boom.

"This means the rankings are increasingly receiving more attention for different specific purposes: Students use them to short-list their choice of university; public and private institutions use them to decide on funding allocations; universities use them to promote themselves; while some politicians use them as a measure of national economic achievements or aspirations. "

It seems that planning for the new rankings took place in the second half of 2009 and that in the first half of 2010 it will be tested on 150 institutions around the world, but only for engineering and business studies.

At that rate, THE, QS and Shanghai Jiao Tong University have nothing to worry about.



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