Several indicators are taken into consideration in rating universities but the focus is on research and teaching.

EXCUSES, excuses! When it emerged in October that not a single Malaysian university was listed among the world’s top 200 published by Times Higher Education (THE) magazine, there were many excuses.

Higher Education Minister Datuk Seri Mohamed Khaled Nordin confirmed that some Malaysian universities had declined to even join the worldwide project. This was because the varsities were of the view that they would not make it into the rankings.

Others suggested that the rankings were not “fair” because funding was used as a criteria or because it gave more weightage to research excellence than to “strong teaching”.

But such excuses avoid the more difficult issues raised by the rankings results.

Higher education is a truly global enterprise: we now have 3.7 million students studying outside their home country, with increasing numbers choosing Malaysia.

Research is a global activity, with scholars uniting across national borders to tackle the world’s biggest challenges, such as climate change and food security. Governments are increasingly prioritising the development of truly international, world-class universities as being essential to their future economic strength.

Under the circumstances, the information that the rankings provide cannot be more relevant.

KL conference

That is why I was delighted to be invited to Kuala Lumpur late last month to speak in detail about the strengths of the Times Higher Education (THE) world rankings at the 2011 International Leadership Conference: Managing Global Universities.

The event was organised by the University of Nottingham, which has set up as a research and teaching campus on a 40.8ha campus in Semenyih, Selangor.

At the event, attended by senior university administrators from all around the world, I spoke at length about how governments, policy-makers and university leaders were increasingly drawing on THE rankings for strategic planning.

In Malaysia, no one has spoken on the issue more clearly than Prof Tan Sri Dr Sharifah Hapsah Syed Hasan Shahabudin, the vice-chancellor of Universiti Kebangsaan Malayisa.

She is reported to have said: “University and research cannot be separated. We must acknowledge that research is important and comparative research data must be given serious attention if we aspire to be in the league of renowned research universities of the world.”

The world rankings should not be ignored, but let’s be clear about the role of THE’s World University Rankings.

The rankings are built on Times Higher Education magazine’s four decades of experience in reporting on higher education for those who work in universities all around the world, combined with data expertise from the world’s most trusted data experts, Thomson Reuters.

The magazine developed its current ranking system only after detailed consultation: an open Internet debate attracting hundreds of comments; a survey of users’ needs, and detailed expert input from an advisory group of more than 50 leading figures from all over the world.

This firm grounding in the heart of the university sector itself has helped establish the rankings as the most highly-regarded and most balanced, comprehensive and carefully calibrated of any global university performance comparisons.

It is true that the THE rankings look only at a particular type of university.

Our world top 200 varsities include only about one percent of the world’s higher education institutions, and the list may have institutions with different cultures, history, sizes and shapes, but they all share core characteristics: they publish world class research; they share knowledge with industrial partners; they teach from undergraduate to doctoral level, they compete in a global market for the top student and academic talent.

One of the great strengths of the global higher education system is its diversity and THE embraces that.

Not everyone can be a Harvard or an Oxford scholar so THE accepts that there can be no “one size fits all” university ranking. It deliberately looks only at the global research-driven university, to make sure it makes comparisons of universities with similar standards and objectives.

But even with its focus on the research-intensive global player, the THE rankings still provides a comprehensive and balanced picture of a world-class university.

Indicators

We use 13 separate performance indicators covering all core missions – knowledge transfer, research, internationalisation, and yes, teaching.

While some university rankings, such as Shanghai’s Academic Ranking of World Universities, focus exclusively on research, THE’s world rankings are unique in giving serious and detailed attention to the importance of teaching.

A university’s ability to provide a rich learning environment for students — and to produce graduates for both the economy and society — is a fundamental part of its role. We reflect the importance of the university’s teaching with five separate performance indicators, which are collectively weighted at 30% of an institution’s overall ranking score.

We also reward a university’s ability to attract international students in a competitive marketplace, a sign not just of that all-important international outlook, but of a strong and attractive teaching environment.

So it is simply wrong to say that the THE world university rankings neglects teaching, On the contrary, ours is the only global rankings which takes a proper look at this crucial aspect.

David Willetts, the United Kingdom’s Higher Education minister said recently: “I welcome the way the THE is trying to measure teaching and is recognising that it is a crucial part of the university experience.”

But it is true to say that research indicators dominate the rankings criteria.

We believe that this is the right approach, given the role of world-class universities in driving forward a nation’s innovation and knowledge economy, and given the importance of a research-rich environment in inspiring the best students towards a great future.

Among our 13 separate performance indicators, we look at a university’s research reputation, productivity and income, but the flagship indicator for the rankings is one of research impact.

It has been given more weightage than any other — 30% for this indicator alone. Our impact indicator simply looks at the role of universities in spreading new knowledge and ideas.

To do this, our data provider Thomson Reuters analyses over 50 million citations of over six million research journal articles published over five years by hundreds of universities.

The data tell us the type of research carried out in every discipline without favouritism.

It also tells us the types of research that have stood out and “built on” by other scholars.

Most importantly, such research is shared by global scholars to push further the boundaries of our collective understanding.

THE’s unique mix of 13 indicators, which get to the heart of the fundamental activities of a global university, makes THE’s rankings impossible to ignore for any country that is serious about joining the world stage of higher education.

■ Phil Baty is editor of Times Higher Education World University Rankings.

For more details visit 
http://bit.ly/thewur.