When Simon Rattle was interviewed about his move from the Berlin Philharmonic to the London Symphony Orchestra he made the point, “There are a few great orchestras in the world, thank goodness. Although some people do put them in ranking order, it’s not like a snooker match. Each orchestra has different things to offer. In some ways these two orchestras are as different as you can imagine.” He went on to comment that, “So many of the things I believe deeply in, including this idea of access for everybody, that education and growth should be at the centre of an orchestra, are exactly what the LSO have been doing.” Universities share some characteristics with orchestras and access, education and growth should always come before rankings.
Regrettably, the University of Southampton’s recently published strategic plan is a reminder that some universities are willing to consider the empty credibility of league tables as equal to the needs of students, communities and society. However, my review of 50 UK university strategic plans suggests that most are avoiding the temptation of putting rankings as a measure of performance, with the Principal and President of King’s College London even writing in a preamble to their plan, “This is not about league tables but about the real contributions we make to the world around us.” Some who have built their measurement around league table rankings are finding that their statements are not ageing terribly well.
University of Southampton
The University of Southampton has been good enough to leave the September 2021 Consultation Draft Strategy on its website so it is possible to see how it developed a more bombastic tone that leaned towards rankings as a sign of success. For example, the draft Purpose and Vision’s rather modest “we aspire to achieve the remarkable” becomes the heroic “we inspire excellence to achieve the remarkable”. Even this is slightly less overstated than Queen Mary University’s, “the unthinkable, achieved”.
A triple helix of Education, Enterprise, Research becomes more convoluted with the insertion of Knowledge Exchange (KE) in front of Enterprise to make it, more logically, a quadruple helix. The Research England’s Knowledge Exchange Framework confirms KE as reflecting “..engagement through research, enterprise and public engagement.” so it could stand alone. One suspects that some enterprising (sic) apparatchik suggested that you can’t have a PVC Research and Enterprise without using the word (perhaps PVC Research and Knowledge Exchange would be a better option).
The draft suggests that the “suite of KPIs, should position us to achieve a stretching ambition of being a top 10 UK and pushing towards a top 50 internationally recognized university..”. There is much less room for doubt in the final version where “..success will be Southampton positioned as a top 10 UK and towards a top 50 internationally recognised university..”. One oddity in all this posturing is that the University’s website home page carries a statement about being a Top 15 UK University; Top 100 in the World but takes you to a page of rankings where they are shown as a Top 16 UK University. This is presumably because they think the Sunday Times is more credible than the Complete University Guide (where they are 15th).
Not In a League of their Own
The University of Southampton is not on its own in having league table aspirations and the table below shows others in the sample of 50 who are explicit about ranking being a strategic plan objective. The point here is that if something is in the strategic plan you would expect a university to devote time, money and effort specifically towards achieving it. It is quite different to prioritising what is best for the student, the community or the great global challenges.
Many universities focus on self-improvement through enhancing their performance in, for example, the National Student Survey or Research Excellence Framework or through measures such as financial stability, attrition rates and graduate outcomes. This seems more reflective and service oriented than deciding to compete in myriad and meaningless ‘best of’ tables that have little direct relevance to students or staff. It is noticeable that universities in the Russell Group are more likely to cite rankings as a performance criteria which suggests they may be a little insecure about their credentials to be in a Group that claims members as “world-class, research-intensive universities.”
Several of those reviewed have, somewhat sneakily but probably wisely, left the provenance of their measurement to be chosen at the discretion of a future Vice Chancellor. It is also relatively easy to sign off on an heroic objective if you know you will not have accountability for delivering it. Others have nailed their colours firmly to a specific mast and may regret it.
Cardiff’s approach may have looked reasonable in 2018 when the strategy was launched and they were in the 101-150 grouping for the AWRU (they are now in the 151-200 group). However, the most recent tables show they have failed to achieve one top 100 international ranking and their current Times/Sunday Times rank is 35. The strategy runs until 2023 so there may still be time and it’s always possible to blame the pandemic but the next iteration of their strategy may be slightly less prescriptive.
The University of East Anglia says, “We also recognise the importance of league tables and will focus on consolidating our position as a top 20 university in all of the main UK university league tables.” Regrettably, the most recent round of league tables finds them at 22 in the Complete University Guide, 41 in The Guardian, 26th in the UK in the THE World Rankings and the THE Table of Tables, and, 27 in The Times/Sunday Times. Not one top 20 place to consolidate as yet but the strategy allows until 2030 to put things right.
One observation is that the University of Warwick, which seems obsessed with league table measurements on the front page of its website, does not explicitly suggest that success will be measured by them – its main claim seem to be that it will be ‘larger than now’. Another would be that UCL is currently in a consultation about its 2022-2027 strategy as a contribution to “maintain the trajectory established by UCL 2034” and uses league tables to highlight issues as part its discussion papers. UCL’s approach is rich in content and may be worth a review by anybody looking to write their own strategy or simply to understand this end of the higher education landscape.
The Things They Say
No review of Strategic Plans would be complete without reflecting briefly on the tendency to reach for the most hyperbolic forms of expression to convey even the simplest of ideas. It is as if the universities are writing the higher education version of the September Dossier rather than setting out a sober-minded and responsible plan. For some there is a reflex to state the blindingly obvious as if it were the musings of a Zen master:
University of Exeter – Together we create the possible
University of Warwick – Excellence with purpose
University of Strathclyde – The place of useful learning
While, occasionally, there are some phrases which just feel, um, worth recording:
University of York – collaborating unconventionally
Leicester University – we don’t want to make a negative impact
Summary
There is increasing evidence that students consider other factors more important than league tables, so for universities to place them as a key measure seems more about internal vanity than external need. INTO University Partnerships claimed recently that research shows “Gen Z students have adjusted their focus from rankings to outcomes amid COVID-19” and even Universities UK has got round to suggesting eight “core metrics” which could easily form the basis for both degree and institutional measurement . Regrettably, this has not stopped some relative newcomers to the rankings party presenting machine learning and AI as the answer to achieving transparency, objectivity and non-gameability so the merry go round continues.
Making league table positions a measure of university strategy puts marketing before meaning or Style Over Substance (a new SOS for the sector). I have discussed views on the most obvious failings in “Keep Your Virtue…Ignore the Reputation Rankings” and “Rank Hypocrisy” and it is good to see that most of those reviewed seem to recognize the vacuousness of this form of measurement. To place ranking as a strategic ambition diverts time, energy and money away from delivering results for students, partners and the great global challenges.
NOTES
* The review of 50 University strategic plans considered documents publicly available on their websites. A combination of search mechanisms and text review was used to determine if league table rankings were specifically and meaningfully mentioned as an objective of the plan. A number of strategic plans reviewed mention current league tables in their text but do not elevate them as a specific strategic objective. The author is pleased to consider any authoritative challenges to the material identified and will post updates/corrections if they prove to be valid.
**The review was based on the documents identified as the main strategic plan of the university in question. It is recognized that operational plans at theme e.g. research, or school of study e.g. biological sciences, may suggest objectives related to league table rankings.
***The review focused on references to league table rankings identified as THE World University Rankings, AWUR, QS University Rankings, the main UK newspaper rankings e.g. Times/Sunday Times, Guardian etc or more broadly as, for example, “key global rankings”.