University ranking lists provide a platform for competition between institutions. They compete for students, for support from agencies and companies, and want to show results to their funders. The goal is to showcase the high-quality teaching and research activities taking place at the university. Previously, university ranking providers' lists featured a small circle of elite universities. Today, however, thousands of universities appear in global rankings. The rankings are no longer only monitored by the maintainers, but also by science policy actors, other stakeholders, educators, competitors, and students. In addition to presenting the performance of institutions, the rankings can also indicate development directions for universities.
It is important to put the results of rankings into context. To do this, it is essential to know what each ranking measures and how. It is not enough to see where we rank on the list; we need to know what conditions apply to each indicator at our own institution and at our competitors. In the long term, rankings can provide feedback on the impact of individual measures.
It is difficult to find an indicator that is equally relevant to all higher education institutions worldwide. For this reason, different ranking providers take different aspects into account and emphasise different indicators when evaluating higher education institutions.
Most ranking providers have bibliometric indicators in common among their indicators. The number of articles and citations is obtained from the Scopus or Web of Science bibliographic databases. The results are usually published in normalised form.
They typically use questionnaires to examine the popularity of higher education institutions and their reputation in the academic sphere. The questionnaires ask about teaching, research, and scientific activities at the institutions.
The institutions participating in the evaluation provide data on the number of students and teachers, their international composition, and revenues.
Some rankings take into account the number of Nobel Prize-winning teachers at the higher education institution and the number of graduates from that university who currently hold senior positions in large American companies.
Rankings that focus less on academic performance (Times Higher Education Impact, UI GreenMetric) consider a wide range of other factors, from energy consumption to gender equality issues.
There is no clear answer to this question. Each institution must find the relevant ranking that helps it achieve its strategic goals. Quacquarelli Symonds (hereinafter: QS) and Times Higher Education (hereinafter: THE) are profit-oriented companies, and the rankings they produce reach a wider audience through advertising. Rankings that focus solely on academic criteria are more objective and transparent in many respects than those of QS and THE, but they receive less media coverage and are therefore less dominant.
You can find a description of the rankings relevant to our university under Rankings and Results.
Given that one of the most dominant indicators in university rankings relates to bibliometric indicators, one of the most important tasks for researchers is to make their work visible to the international research community. One way to do this is to consciously choose journals and develop an individual publication strategy. The library staff can help you with this.
It is also important to know that most of the points awarded in international university rankings are based on questionnaires completed by teachers/researchers. The questionnaires ask about teaching, research, and scientific activities taking place at the institutions.
- - Each year, Times Higher Education determines the group of academics to whom the questionnaire will be sent. At the end of each year, THE sends out a request from timeshighereducation@surveys.elsevier.com, which recipients can complete by the end of February of the following year. If you receive an invitation next time, don't forget to nominate UP!
- - Quacquarelli Symonds sends out two questionnaires addressed to individuals based on recommendations from higher education institutions. Higher education institutions must nominate respondents who are not employed by the institution in question. If you know of any foreign or Hungarian researchers who you believe would be willing to recommend UP, please let us know at ranking@pte.hu.
Yes, they do! Subject rankings are the most important for applicants, as most of them want to continue their studies in a specific field, so they do not base their decisions on university rankings. It may also be interesting for science policy makers and stakeholders to see how higher education institutions perform in a given field of science. These factors can influence the funding of research projects.
For further information, please contact our staff at authorsupport@lib.pte.hu or call (72) 501-600/28042.