Comments on: Are our universities really destined for long term decline?

By: James Fryar

James Fryar — Sun, 07 Oct 2012 13:28:01 +0000

These rankings are completely and totally meaningless since they are based on arbitrary weightings – 30% for teaching, 30% for research, etc. Why not 75% for teaching since that’s the primary function of a university? Would such a weighting completely reorder the list? Who determined that 30% was the ‘correct’ percentage and on what basis was that 30% chosen? Was it just a nice round number?

These lists are the mathematical equivalent of the algorithms that determine ‘the most unhappy day of the year’ or ‘the best day to propose to your lover’. They do not deserve consideration and I simply don’t understand why academics can’t just ignore them.

By: Ernie Ball

Ernie Ball — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 16:51:46 +0000

These lists are nonsense. Even if I accepted the principle of “rank” (which I don’t for the simple reason that different institutions might have different strengths and one measure doesn’t fit all), the idea that institutions the size of universities could change their rank with the frequency of greyhounds is absurd.

Anyway, all of the methodological shifting could just be done away with. Want a list of the best research universities? Look for the richest universities. Endowment and annual funding (per student) will give a better list than any of these other specious rankings and have the advantage of evolving at roughly the rate that universities evolve. Yes, there are some outliers in both directions, but not very many.

By: Anna Notaro

Anna Notaro — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 12:35:50 +0000

*There may be a hint in the rankings that the university of the future is no longer necessarily the ancient, classical, blue-skies-research institution. The new leader, as exemplified in the world’s number 1 university, the California Institute of Technology, may be a more focused, networked and translational university.*
I would tend to agree with this, the obvious problem regarding the demise of blue-skies-research is the one identified by Bernd Huber, president of Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munchen and chairman of the League of European Research Universities, when commenting the rankings he wrote:
‘Policies that favour applied over basic or blue-sky research – which is the main domain of research-oriented universities – are one problem. This preference for applied research not only seriously underestimates the role of basic research as a long-term generator of innovation, it also favours certain subjects [STEM] while neglecting others [Humanities]’.
Elsewhere he also laments ‘the lack of competition and differentiation among [European] universities, arguing that ‘Rivalry is vital for the development of world-class institutions’ (http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/2012-13/world-ranking/analysis/competitive-edge)
Huber’s statement reflects the contradictions that universities face, in fact it is difficult to see how rivalry and competition (the pressure to gain a competitive edge fast) cannot but support a ‘utilitarian’ approach to research, thus favouring exactly those subjects (STEM) which have a more basic, short-term application.
The university of the future has to be one which is ‘focused, networked and translational’, as argued in this post but also one where an excessive competitive edge is tempered with the ethos of collaboration. If we have to believe the ‘What makes Caltech’s special’ section of their newly redesigned web site we discover that collaboration has the upper hand over competition, (http://www.caltech.edu/content/what-makes-caltech-special) we might consider learning from the best!

By: no-name

no-name — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 06:59:22 +0000

It is not obvious that universities around Ireland and the UK are unavoidably destined for decline, but a tendency towards average (and for some that means decline, but for others, improvement) is difficult to resist, particularly when each looks at the other to inform notions of “best practice”, and when each faces pressure to educate all and not merely the best.

By: Vince

Vince — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 05:39:05 +0000

All in all these lists are rather meaningless. Yes, you have ‘X’ at 50 and ‘Y’ at 35 and ‘Z’ at 210. But any list will do this. It’s the nature of lists. What we need to know is where the bands sit. Who are in these bands. And what is the vertical distance between these bands. We need relativity.