Education Cooperation

Ranking Europe's universities - Australian universities welcome!

Australian universities are sought to take part in an EC funded multi-dimensional university ranking system with global outreach. This initiative builds on earlier EU-funded work on mapping the different strengths and missions of universities and responds to an invitation by the French Presidency of the EU to explore and test the feasibility of a new ranking system for higher education and research institutions in Europe, in comparison with other world regions. The first results of the envisaged pilot project will be available in the first half of 2011.

Background:

Comparable information on higher education institutions and their teaching and research programmes should make it easier for students and researchers to make informed choices on where and what to study and where to work. Better information would also help policy-makers at institutional, national and European levels develop future strategies in higher education. Existing mono-dimensional rankings do not fulfil these purposes because they tend to focus on certain aspects of research and on entire institutions, rather than on individual programmes and disciplines.

While drawing on the experience of existing university rankings and of earlier EU-funded projects, the new ranking system should be -

• multi-dimensional: covering the various missions of institutions, such as education, research, innovation, internationalisation and community outreach;
• independent: it should not be run by public authorities or universities;
• transparent: it should provide users with a clear understanding of all the factors used to measure performance and offer them the possibility to consult the ranking according to their needs;
• global: covering institutions inside and outside Europe (in particular those in the US, Asia and Australia).

The bid was won by the CHERPA-Network consortium and is led by the Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies of the Twente University (NL) and the Centrum für Hochschulentwicklung (DE). The other partners in the consortium are the Centre for Science and Technology Studies of the Leiden University (NL), the Research Division INCENTIM of the Leuven University (BE), the Observatoire des Sciences et des Techniques Paris (FR), the European Federation of National Engineering Associations and the European Foundation for Management Development.

The project will take 2 years and will cost approximately €1.1million. For more information see: http://www.u-multirank.eu/