Rank or be ranked

On 6 and 7 February the International Office of Leiden University is organising its third international symposium on ranking. 'Ranking is a game,' according to Dr Robert Coelen, Director of the International Office. ‘But you don't have any choice; you have to take part.'

Robert Coelen: ‘Leiden has a reputation as the centre of experise for rankings within Europe.’

Different rankings

There are a number of different international rankings, all of which apply different criteria, and these rankings are mainly focused on science and social sciences.  The two most prominent ones are the Shanghai Ranking from the Chinese Shanghai Jiao Tong University and the English Times Ranking from the Times Higher Education. Currently, the rankings are mainly based on the universities' research performance. The  Shanghai Ranking is fairly consistent (in 2007 and 2008 Leiden was in 71st and 76th position respectively) but according to the Times Ranking Leiden has risen twenty places in one year (from 84th position in 2007 to 64th in 2008).

Selling newspapers

Coelen takes a critical view of this. 'Such a jump isn't possible in one year, unless the criteria have changed, and that's just what has happened.  And it's something the Times keeps on doing.  My theory is that the objective is to keep the result as exciting as possible so that they can sell more newspapers.  During the symposium I'm going to put my theory to Martin Ince, Commissioning Editor of the Times Higher Education Supplement. He can take it, but I am very interested to hear how he will react.’

Prestige

'Ranking is a game,' according to Coelen, ‘but you don't have any choice; you have to take part and treat it seriously because your ranking is an important indication of your university's prestige.  And politicians, policy-makers, scientists, PhD students and master's students base their judgments on rankings and make choices accordingly.'

Three themes

The programme for the symposium, which is sponsored by the European Association of International Educators, revolves around three major themes. The first is the methodology of ranking.  Professor Ton van Raan of the  Centre for Science and Technology Studies will explain how, with the financial support of a European subsidy, he intends to devise a more realistic and fair method of ranking in his Leiden ranking.  ('The reason the symposium is being held in Leiden is that we have a reputation in Europe as the centre of expertise for rankings,' says Coelen.) The second theme is the way in which universities and governments handle rankings. The third theme is the worldwide impact of rankings.  

Self ranking

Although the thinking goes beyond rankings, as is witnessed by the title of one of the lectures: ‘Moving beyond university rankings: developing world class university systems’, Coelen believes that we will still be dealing with rankings for some time.  'Countries with few universities in the main rankings have started doing their own rankings, then at least their universities have a place somewhere.  It's a case of  rank or be ranked.’

Image: ‘Students will start looking at rankings differently.’

Minor differences

'I do expect there to be a shift in the way international students view rankings,' he says. 'I think they will realise that you may well have an absolute top 25, but that after that it doesn't really make much difference if a university is in 50th or 75th position. When you analyse it, what are we actually talking about? Differences of one-tenth on particular elements. I once took a drawing done by one of my children to the teacher. She had given the drawing a 7.8, but I felt it was worth 7.9, so I asked her how she arrived at that 7.8. As you might expect, she wasn't able to give a satisfactory explanation.'

Own criteria

'The universities in the range from 1 to 25 in the rankings are relatively stable.  After that you can be reasonably sure that numbers 25 to 100 are good universities where a foreign student can enrol with every confidence as to the universities' teaching and research.  Once that message has been understood, other aspects start to play a role.  For instance, for keen sports students the sporting facilities are important.  For others, accommodation is a key aspect, and for yet others the university's attitude towards students and how they are treated is a major factor. There are already ranking systems where students can modify a number of criteria themselves.'   

For programme and registration see: symposium website