U21 Ranking of National Higher Education Systems 2014
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U21 Ranking of National Higher Education Systems 2014 quality China Professor educationranking nations Netherlands performance U21 India Hong Kong SAR Mexico Sweden systems New Zealand variable output Singaporeuniversitiesnation world USA connectivity sector Canada South Africa funding higher rankacademics regulatory expenditure data populationGDP private Australia weight international good funding research UK indicator environment national students Ireland countrieshighest institution Chile resources government Japan broad Korea Universitas 21 international measure U21 Ranking of National Higher Education Systems A project sponsored by Universitas 21 Ross Williams, University of Melbourne Gaetan de Rassenfosse, University of Melbourne Paul Jensen, University of Melbourne Simon Marginson, London University May 2014 The project is based at the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research University of Melbourne U21 Ranking of National Higher Education Systems 2014 Contents Executive Summary 5 Overall Table of Rankings 6 1. Introduction 8 2. Changes in Methodology from the 2013 Rankings 9 3. Measures and Results 10 3.1 Resources 10 3.2 Environment 12 3.3 Connectivity 14 3.4 Output 16 3.5 Overall Ranking 18 4. Methodology of Adjusting for Levels of Economic Development 20 5. Results After Adjusting for Levels of Economic Development 21 5.1 Resources 21 5.2 Environment 21 5.3 Connectivity 21 5.4 Output 22 5.5 Overall Ranking 22 Table of Measures Adjusted for Levels of Economic Development 23 Overall Table of Rankings Adjusted for Levels of Economic Development 24 6. Concluding Remarks 26 Appendix & References 27 Acknowledgements The Steering Group for the project is: Dr Ying Cheng, Graduate School of Education, Shanghai Jiao Tong University Professor David Greenaway, Vice-Chancellor, University of Nottingham Professor Don Fisher, Department of Educational Studies, University of British Columbia Professor Simon Marginson, Institute of Higher Education, University of London Professor Ross Williams, Melbourne Institute, University of Melbourne The Universitas 21 (U21) Secretariat provided invaluable assistance. We especially thank Jane Usherwood, U21 Secretary General, and Lucy Smith, Media Manager for the Rankings project. We are most grateful to Isidro Aguillo for providing the data from Webometrics and Robert Tijssen, Leiden University, for the data on co-authored research publications with industry. Our thinking has been much informed by the invited speakers and other participants at the U21 Symposium, National Systems of Higher Education: Criteria for Evaluation, held in Shanghai, November 7, 2013. Executive Summary The 2014 Universitas 21 ranking of national systems retains the methodology of the 2013 rankings, but supplements this with an auxiliary ranking that takes account of stages of economic development. 24 desirable attributes are grouped under four broad headings: Resources, Environment, Connectivity and Output. The Resources component covers government expenditure, total expenditure, and R&D expenditure in tertiary institutions. The Environment module comprises a quantitative index of the policy and regulatory environment, the gender balance of students and academic staff, and a data quality variable. The Connectivity component has been extended by including measures of interaction with business and industry, in addition to numbers of international students, research articles written with international collaborators and web-based connectivity. Nine Output variables are included that cover research output and its impact, the presence of world-class universities, participation rates and the qualifications of the workforce. The appropriateness of training is measured by relative unemployment rates. The overall country ranking is a weighted average of each module. The improvement in the scope of the Connectivity module has led us to increase the weight on this component from 15 to 20 per cent and to lower the weight on the Resources component by five percentage points. The weights used in the 2014 rankings are: Resources (20%), Environment (20%), Connectivity (20%) and Output (40%). The widened definition of Connectivity has seen an improvement in the rankings for several Asian countries, and a decline for several Eastern European countries. Overall, though, the leaders in Connectivity are Switzerland, Sweden and the United Kingdom. Environment is topped by New Zealand and the Netherlands. Resource levels are highest in Denmark, followed by Canada, Sweden and the United Sates. The biggest change since the 2013 rankings has been a fall of five places by Bulgaria, Hungary and the Russian Federation occasioned by relative declines in government expenditure. On Output measures, the top five countries are the same as in 2013: the United States is again clearly first followed by the United Kingdom, Canada, Sweden and Finland. Among the top eight countries for Output, all but two (the United Kingdom and Australia) are in the top eight for Resources. Overall, the top 10 countries in rank order are: the United States, Sweden, Canada and Denmark, Finland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Australia and Singapore. Our main ranking compares a country’s performance against the best in the world on each measure. In our auxiliary ranking, countries are scored on how they perform on each of the 24 measures relative to countries at similar stages of economic development as measured by GDP per capita. This produces marked changes in ranking. China (becomes ninth), India (becomes 23rd) and South Africa (becomes 17th) all improve their overall ranking by at least 25 places, although the three top-ranked countries are Sweden, Finland and Denmark. A noticeable feature is that several lower income countries show very marked improvements in the Connectivity ranking (the top two are now South Africa and Thailand, and Indonesia becomes seventh), an activity that is likely to be most beneficial to economic growth. 5 U21 Ranking 2014 Rank Country Score 1 United States of America 100.0 2 Sweden 86.7 3 Canada 82.9 3 Denmark 82.9 5 Finland 82.2 6 Switzerland 81.5 7 Netherlands 80.4 8 United Kingdom 79.2 9 Australia 78.0 10 Singapore 76.3 11 Norway 75.0 12 Austria 73.7 13 Belgium 73.1 14 Germany 71.1 15 Hong Kong SAR 70.6 16 New Zealand 70.4 17 Ireland 69.7 18 France 68.7 19 Israel 68.5 20 Japan 64.9 21 Korea 61.6 22 Taiwan-China 61.3 23 Spain 61.1 24 Portugal 60.3 25 Slovenia 59.6 The measures are grouped under four main headings: Resources, Environment, Connectivity and Output. 6 National Higher Education Systems Rank Country Score 26 Czech Republic 58.2 27 Italy 53.7 28 Malaysia 53.4 29 Hungary 52.5 30 Saudi Arabia 52.4 31 Poland 50.8 32 Greece 50.3 33 Chile 49.1 34 Serbia 48.7 35 China 48.6 35 Russian Federation 48.6 37 Slovakia 47.9 38 Brazil 46.1 39 Romania 45.4 40 Bulgaria 45.0 41 Argentina 44.9 42 Thailand 43.9 42 Ukraine 43.9 44 Croatia 43.7 45 South Africa 43.4 46 Mexico 42.6 47 Turkey 39.1 48 Indonesia 38.5 49 Iran 37.8 50 India 36.8 All the variables and the weighting are explained in this report. The measures are constructed for 50 countries at various stages of development. 7 1. Introduction This report presents results for the third annual ranking of national systems of higher education undertaken under the auspices of the Universitas 21 group of universities. Some 50 countries are ranked overall and in each of four areas: Resources, Environment, Connectivity and Output. The essential logic behind the development of national rankings is that it is the higher education system as a whole, not only of research intensive universities, that matters for the economic and cultural development of a nation. The higher education system educates and trains people across a wide range of skills, it undertakes and fosters both basic and applied research, and promotes the transfer of knowledge both domestically and internationally. The reasoning behind our methodology is set out in ‘The Determinants of Quality National Higher Education Systems’, Williams, de Rassenfosse, Jensen and Marginson (2013), and in the reports published on the U21 website (www.universitas21.com). The methodology assumes that the more resources going into higher education the better. On the output side it is assumed, for example, that the more research papers produced and the greater number of students that are taught the better. This might be described as ranking based on absolute excellence, where a country’s higher education system is judged against that of the best in the world. A major innovation introduced in the present report, compared to previous years, is an auxiliary ranking which takes account of national levels of income as measures by GDP per capita. A nation’s resources are limited and have alternative uses. It would be economically indefensible for a low income country to spend as much per student in higher education as, say, the United States or a Nordic country. At the margin, the returns would be much higher elsewhere, not least in schooling. In this ranking, a nation’s higher education system is benchmarked against those in countries with similar levels of income. 8 2. Changes in Methodology from the 2013 Rankings Two new variables have been added to the Connectivity module which significantly enhance its scope. These are, firstly, the views of business leaders on the extent of ‘knowledge transfer’ between companies and universities and, secondly, a measure of the extent of joint authorship of articles between universities and industry researchers. The latter is a new series constructed by Professor Tijssen of Leiden University. This brings the total number of variables to 24. In view of these additions, the overall weighting of Connectivity has been increased from 15 to 20 per cent. The weight on Resources is reduced commensurately from 25 per cent to 20 per cent to reflect our ongoing concerns about the data on private expenditure.