Reputation and Rankings

Abstract

In the last decade, global rankings of universities began to emerge strongly, allowing national and international comparison of higher education institutions. In fact, they are already in a central position in the public discussion on the role of universities in our societies by providing a way of measuring and comparing the quality and results of these institutions and thereby influencing their reputation. Those rankings more relevant, the Academic Ranking of World Universities or Ranking of Shanghai, Times Higher Education World University Ranking and QS World University Ranking, are characterized by ordering the universities,
considered as a whole, in the form of a league table from the results obtained in a composite score, composed by the weighting of several individual indicators. This article reviews the methodology of these three rankings, focusing on their limitations and weaknesses (such as being too focused on research or the difficulty of establishing objectively specific weights for each individual indicator). And finally presents the U-Multirank, promoted by the European Commission, which seeks to overcome the limitations of traditional rankings. It is an alternative system to rank universities, based on their performance in a wide number of indicators in five dimensions (teaching and learning, research, knowledge transfer, international orientation and regional engagement) and in several subjects.