College and university rankings have received considerable attention throughout the world. To date, very little inquiry has examined the role of these rankings in shaping international student enrollment, which is surprising given many institutions' desire to recruit these students. The present study explores this issue by examining data from…

Global university rankings influence students' choices and higher education policies throughout the world. When rankers not only evaluate universities but also provide them with consulting, analytics, or advertising services, rankers are vulnerable to conflicts of interest that may potentially distort their rankings. The paper assesses the impact…

This study's principal objective was to explore the statistically predictive power of academics' research agendas for their job dissatisfaction beyond demographics. Five hundred and forty-seven academics from the eight publicly funded universities in Hong Kong responded to the Multi-Dimensional Research Agenda Inventory-12 (MDRAI-12) and the Job…

The evaluation of research to allocate government funding to universities is now common across the globe. "The Research Excellence Framework," introduced in the UK in 2014, marked a major change by extending assessment beyond the 'quality' of published research to include its real-world 'impact'. Impact submissions were a key determinant…

Global university rankings (GUR) have become increasingly influential as a proxy measure of higher education quality. The more recent development of regionalised forms of rankings has increased their global reach, drawing a greatly expanded range of institutions into their orbit. As a result, regionalised GUR have developed an increasing potential…

Over the past 20 years, international student mobility has experienced a three-fold increase, as planned and emerging education hubs have attracted increasing numbers of students. The appeal of alternative destinations is strengthened by their cultural, linguistic, and geographic proximity, as well as a growing number of internationally ranked…

Many contemporary analyses criticise metrics-based evaluation in the higher education context as a neoliberal technology, notwithstanding the different national contexts and organisational topographies in which metrics are used. This Anglo-German study offers a comparative exploration of the role of metrics in two contrasting cases: highly…

University rankers are the subject of much criticism, and yet they remain influential in the field of higher education. Drawing from a two-year field study of university ranking organizations, interviews with key correspondents in the sector, and an analysis of related documents, I introduce the concept of "weak expertise." This kind of…

Since universities' commitment to internationalisation has been increasing, instruments for measuring institutional internationalisation performance are urgently needed to monitor and evaluate the progress made about internationalisation. Although efforts have been made to develop various tools, an internationally applicable instrument for…

While higher education research has paid considerable attention to the impact of both ratings and rankings on universities, less attention has been devoted to how university subunits, such as Schools of Education, are affected by such performance measurements. Anchored in a neo-institutional approach, we analyze the formation of a competitive…

Despite some theoretical and technical criticism, scholars largely acknowledge the influence of universities' ranking positions on the preferences of fund providers, academics and students, nationally and internationally. Considering their noticeable contribution to university rankings, prominent indicators can guide university leaders to develop…

Before the 2000s and the buzz surrounding global rankings, many countries witnessed the emergence and development, starting in the 1970s, of academic media rankings produced primarily by press organisations. This domestic, media-based production, despite the relative lack of attention paid by the social sciences, has been progressively integrated…

Global university rankings currently attract considerable attention, and it is often assumed that such rankings may cause universities to prioritize activities and outcomes that will have a positive effect in their ranking position. A possible consequence of this could be the spread of a particular model of an "ideal" university. This…

Much research on higher education has discussed the positional competition induced by global rankings and the complementary concept of "world-class" universities. This paper investigates the network of social media communication between globally ranked universities. Specifically, it examines whether universities seek to preserve and…

The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of how the employees of higher education institutions perceive the impact of external evaluations. The study was conducted using the concurrent mixed method and involved 361 employees from Estonian universities and professional higher education institutions. The results indicated that…