The talk identifies the impact of “world university rankings” on research and curriculum development, particularly for universities in the global South. It is argued that relevance of local research and community engagement are better indicators of ‘excellence’ in the university and we need to rethink assumptions behind "objective" indicators that are underlying most of the major world rankings. These rankings have the effect of rendering research from the developing world invisible and dictating curriculum development oriented towards market needs of the global North. Such rankings thus represent a form of social and cognitive exclusion and institution of higher education should strongly resist this agenda, and formulate other forms of "excellence" based on social inclusion and community engagement.

1. THE IMPACT OF “WORLD UNIVERSITY
RANKINGS” ON RESEARCH AND
CURRICULUM DEVELOPMENT
Local relevance and community
engagement are better indicators of
‘excellence’ in the university
Leslie Chan @lesliekwchan
Centre for Critical Development Studies
University of Toronto Scarborough
I INTERNACIONAL COLLOQUIUM ON
EXCELLENCE IN HIGHER EDUCATION
Universidade Federal do Sul da Bahia
Porto Seguro, Brazil
Nov. 11-12, 2014

2. Key argument
Local relevance
and community
engagement
are better
indicators of
‘excellence’ in
the university
A relevância local e
o envolvimento da
comunidade são
melhores
indicadores de
"excelência" na
universidade

3. Some questions
• Why the proliferation
of world university
rankings?
• What are they
supposed to
“measure”?
• What constitutes
“excellence” and
“quality”?
• Should there be a
homogenized
yardstick?
• Por que a proliferação de
rankings universitários
mundiais?
• O que eles supostamente
"medem”?
• O que constituem a
"excelência" e a
"qualidade”?
• Deve haver um critério
homogeneizado?

4. • What do they make
visible and render
invisible?
• Implications for policy
and governance?
• How to address the
imbalances and
inequity?
• How to reconcile the
“local” and the “global”?
• O que eles tornam
visível e deixam
invisível
• Quais as implicações
para a política e
governança?
• Como lidar com o
desequilíbrio e a
desigualdade?
• Como conciliar o
"local" e o "global"?

5. Some personal background…
Alguns antecedentes pessoais...

6. http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/ccds/

8. Shanghai Jiao Tong ranks universities by
measuring objective indicators of academic or
research performance. These include: alumni and
faculty winning prestigious prizes and medals;
highly cited researchers; articles published in
Nature and Science; articles indexed in major
citation indices, and the per capita academic
performance of an institution.

9. Open Access and the global scientific
production system
Acesso Aberto e o sistema de produção
científica mundial

11. Figure 1. Unequal contribution and participation in science.
Chan L, Kirsop B, Arunachalam S (2011) Towards Open and Equitable Access to Research and Knowledge for
Development. PLoS Med 8(3): e1001016. doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.1001016
http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pmed.1001016

12. Alperin, Juan Pablo (2014): World scaled by number of documents in Web of
Science 2011 by Authors Living There. Figshare.
http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.953177. Retrieved 14:56, Nov 11, 2014 (GMT)

13. Personal Context
http://www.bioline.org.br

14. Journals on Bioline
http://goo.gl/cfR0dD

15. Will Open Access change the current
power structure of global scientific
production and dissemination?
Periphery
Centre
O Acesso Aberto mudará a
estrutura de poder da
produção científica mundial e
sua disseminação?

16. Proliferations of “World University
Rankings”…
Proliferações de “Rankings Mundiais de
Universidades"

17. • Now over 40 countries
with national ranking
• Over a dozen
international or global
rankings
• Some by national
institutes, research
centers, but many are by
transnational media
companies
• First ranking of Brazilian
universities was
launched in 2012
• Agora, mais de 40 países
com rankings nacionais
• Mais de uma dúzia de
rankings internacionais ou
globais
• Alguns de institutos
nacionais e centros de
pesquisa, mas muitos são de
empresas transnacionais de
mídia
• O primeiro ranking de
universidades brasileiras foi
lançado em 2012

18. Why Ranking? Para quê Rankings?
• A form of “consumer’s guide”
for students and parents
• Stimulate friendly competition
among institutions
• Differentiate types of
institutions and their strengths
• Framework for national
assessment, accountability,
quality assurance
• Contribute to debate on the
definition of “excellence” and
“quality” of higher education
• Uma forma de "guia do
consumidor" para alunos e
pais
• Estimular a competição
amigável entre as instituições
• Diferenciar tipos de instituições
e seus pontos fortes
• Quadro de avaliação nacional,
responsabilidade, garantia de
qualidade
• Contribuir para o debate sobre
a definição de "excelência" e
"qualidade" do ensino superior

20. • http://ruf.folha.uol.com.br/2014/

21. http://www.shanghairanking.com/

22. http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/world-university-rankings/

24. http://thomsonreuters.com/

25. What rankings leave out
O que os rankings deixam de fora
• Do not reward good
teaching and
pedagogy
• Transformation of
students
• Fitness-for-purpose
• Community
connection and
engagement
• Não recompensa o bom
ensino e a pedagogia
• A transformação dos
estudantes
• A adequação à finalidade
• O contato e o
engajamento comunitário

26. The “Market” Imperative
O imperativo do "Mercado"

28. http://thomsonreuters.com/

29. http://ke.thomsonreuters.com/#/index.html

30. “Today's rating assignment reflects the University of Cambridge's outstanding market
position, significant amount of liquid assets and strong governance structure. It also
takes into account an expected increase in the university's debt-to-revenue ratio to a
modest level.
Moody's notes that the University of Cambridge, which recently celebrated its 800th
anniversary, enjoys an extraordinarily strong market position, as a global leader in
education and research, supported by strong publishing and assessment businesses. It
has been successful in recruiting top quality students and faculty and in securing
significant research funding from various sources inside and outside of the
United Kingdom.”
Moody’s assessment of Cambridge University 2011

31. …there is a lot of fatalism around us. An
immobilizing ideology of fatalism, with its
flighty postmodern pragmatism, which
insists that we can do nothing to change the
march of social-historical and cultural reality
because that is how the world is anyway.
The most dominant contemporary version of
such fatalism is neoliberalism.
Paulo Freire, 2001, 26

33. Benjamin D. Hennig and Phil Baty
http://www.viewsoftheworld.net/?p=4214

34. “What started as small-scale,
Palgrave MacMillan. March 2011.
nationally
focused guides for
students and parents
has become a global
business that heavily
influences higher
education and has
repercussions well
beyond academe”

35. A cautionary example
Um exemplo de advertência

36. http://www.capes.gov.br/component/content/article?id=7209%3Ainternacionalizaca
o-da-producao-cientifica-e-tema-de-reuniao-do-portal-de-periodicos

37. University of Cape Town, circa 2011

38. http://www.nature.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/nature/journal/v454/n7203/
full/454398a.html

39. Nature Vol 454|24 July 2008
http://www.nature.com.myaccess.library.utoronto.ca/nature/journal/v454/n7203/full
/454398a.html

40. “The publish-or-perish
mentality that has
arisen in China, with
its focus on Western
journals, has
unintended
implications that
threaten to obviate the
roughly 8,000 national
scientific journals
published in Chinese”
“A mentalidade publicar-ou-
perecer que surgiu
na China, com seu foco
em jornais ocidentais,
tem implicações
imprevistas que
ameaçam eliminar cerca
de 8000 revistas
científicas nacionais
publicadas em chinês"

41. “When setting agendas,
governments in developing
countries must be careful
in allocating their resources
for science to achieve a
balance between following
the science frontier globally
and addressing crucial
domestic needs. A balance
should also be struck
between generating
knowledge and
disseminating and using
knowledge.”
“Ao definir agendas, os
governos dos países em
desenvolvimento devem ser
cuidadosos na alocação de
seus recursos para a ciência,
para alcançar um equilíbrio
entre seguir a fronteira da
ciência mundial e atender às
necessidades domésticas
cruciais. Um equilíbrio
também deve ser atingido
entre a geração de
conhecimento e a
disseminação e uso do
conhecimento”

42. Case studies of
university and
civil society
collaboration
http://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/product.php?productid=2286

43. http://www.scielo.org/php/index.php

44. Alternatives?

45. Alternative measurement
http://www.u-multirank.eu/

46. Community Engagement
http://nerche.org/

47. http://www.guni-rmies.net/

48. http://pascalobservatory.org/about/introduction

49. Final remarks Considerações Finais
• Importance of Contexts
• Ranking tools are not value
neutral and we need tools
and frameworks designed
for social inclusion
• Re-examine the missions of
the university and fitness-for-
purpose
• From “elitist excellence” to
“social and societal”
excellence
• Need to have buy-in from
policy makers and
university leaders
• Importância dos contextos
• Ferramentas de rankings não
tem um valor neutro e
precisamos de ferramentas e
estruturas projetadas para a
inclusão social
• Reexaminar as missões da
universidade e adequação aos
fins
• Da "excelência elitista" à
excelência "social e societal”
• Precisa do apoio de políticos e
líderes universitários

50. Initiatives based in the global South?
Please share you ideas:
@lesliekwchan
@ocsdnet
chan@utsc.utoronto.ca