European Trends

NUMBER 51, SPRING 2008

Rankings, Diversity, and Excellence: A European Policy Challenge?

Ellen Hazelkorn
Ellen Hazelkorn is Director of the Higher Education Policy Research Unit and Dean of the Faculty of Applied Arts, Dublin Institute of Technology, Ireland. E-mail: ellen.hazelkorn.@dit.ie.

The headline in the International Herald Tribune (November 23, 2007) said it all: "To compete, Germany aims to rebuild strength in research." The article recounted how, having assessed the performance of German higher education institutions in worldwide rankings, the government started a program to create its own "Ivy League." The "excellence initiative" follows similar moves by France, Russia, and Denmark, among others. On the same day, the European Union passed a resolution reaffirming the need to "accelerate reform of universities in order to?... foster the emergence and strengthening of European higher education institutions which can demonstrate their excellence at the international level."

In other instances, higher education institutions are taking the initiative themselves, merging competitive institutions to create a larger critical mass (e.g., the University of North London and London Guildhall University formed London Metropolitan University, and University of Manchester Institute of Science and Technology and Victoria University of Manchester formed the University of Manchester) and creating global networks of research-intensive universities (e.g., Universitas 21, Coimbra Group, League of European Research Universities, Worldwide Universities Network, and International Alliance of Research Universities).

Worldwide higher education rankings, of which the Shanghai Jiao Tong Academic Ranking of World Universities is now a leading example, have highlighted research intensity as the defining characteristic of higher education. Around the world, governments and higher education institutions are responding, and these developments are forcing changes in higher education systems. This trend is especially true in Europe where efforts to establish the European Higher Education Area and the European Research Area are challenging traditional assumptions about higher education systems and the balance between equity, diversity, and excellence.

Impact of Rankings
Rankings both manifest and drive the competitive global higher education environment. Despite criticism of the methodologies used, higher education leaders believe rankings help maintain and build institutional reputation; good students use rankings to shortlist university choice, especially at the postgraduate level; and rankings influence national and international partnerships and collaborations. Key stakeholders also use rankings to influence their own decisions about accreditation, funding, sponsorship, and employee recruitment.

While rankings have been dismissed by many people because of methodological flaws, they cannot be ignored and have become a driver of policy and institutional strategy. Given the cost of achieving "world-class" excellence, many governments question whether research should be concentrated in some higher education institutions or in clusters of institutions. The pace of higher education reform is quickening in the belief that better and more competitive higher education institutions determine being more highly ranked.

End of the Binary System?
In the post?World War II massification era, many European governments used legislative mechanisms to enforce mission diversity, dividing higher education into two distinct institutional types or sectors—a binary system. Unlike "traditional" universities, polytechnics, Fachhochschulen, hogescholen, institutes of technology, and university colleges provided vocationally or professionally relevant education responsive to regional needs. Over time, credentialism and the growth of research to underpin advanced qualifications, and recently the Bologna process, have weakened the boundaries between elite and mass education, vocational and academic, and technological and traditional education. The "mission drift" has involved both universities and new higher education institutions and contributed to rising tension between the de jure and de facto research function among these institutions. Today, nomenclature often owes more to political rather than accreditation concerns.

Higher education policy has reflected these developments. Until recently, importance was placed on massification/democratization and access—getting more people well educated. There was little discrimination of various universities by the public or government, although polytechnics or Fachhochschulen were always considered and treated differently, and few countries imposed barriers to student entry. The emphasis is on quality and world-class excellence and selection rather than recruitment. Many states are turning away from regulatory mechanisms toward more opaque steerage and competition to foster vertical differentiation.

Few governments have followed the United Kingdom's 1992 decision to convert all polytechnics overnight, but change is occurring and the pace is quickening. For example, Norway's 1955 legislation allowing state colleges to apply for university status opened up a minor floodgate, and a commission is now seeking to balance institutional ambitions with national strategies. Ireland faces similar pressures but has currently chosen to boost research capacity or capability by giving funding for cross-sector infrastructural and research projects and regional collaborations. Flanders has established "university associations" bridging hogescholen and universities, to encourage research partnerships. Fachhochschulen and hogescholen in the Netherlands, Germany, and Switzerland have adopted the title "University of Applied Sciences" to align themselves with the post-Bologna world and compete internationally. Both the Dutch and the Swiss have been reconsidering the usefulness of their binary system. The forthcoming Swiss legislation suggests a compromise: a formal binary but within a single higher education system.

These changes are provoking a political response. The European University Association recently debated broadening membership beyond traditional universities but met some resistance from universities concerned with competitiveness and spreading resources more widely or thinly. Such reactions may indicate reluctance formally to "end the binary" or redefine it. Irish universities are differentiated between tertiary (undergraduate) and fourth (postgraduate) level activity or institutions and UK universities between teaching-only and research universities. At the same time, a new network for Universities of Applied Sciences (http://www.uasnet.org) looks likely to flex its muscle.

A New Shape?
The details in each country vary but do represent a growing urgency to reform Europe's higher education institutions for competitiveness, while acknowledging that traditional universities can no longer meet all the geopolitical demands for research, development, and innovation. As part of this process, the European Commission is funding the development of a European "Carnegie Classification" with emphasis on broadening both horizontal and vertical differentiation.

European societies have hitherto perceived education as a social public good, available to everyone at little or no additional cost. While rankings are not the cause of the changes, they are fueling a reputational "arms race" and exploiting tensions between equity and excellence. Governments are using a combination of market mechanisms and competitive or performance- and output-based funding, with clear institutional mission descriptors or performance contracts. While the de jure binary may linger in some countries, the creation of a broadened and unified higher education system will further undermine its veracity. This will be a game of survival of the fittest.

[Online] Available: http://www.bc.edu/bc_org/avp/soe/cihe/newsletter/Number51/p19_Hazelkorn.htm