QS Intelligence Unit | Higher Education World

Higher Education World – June 2016: Foreword

June 22, 2016/0 Comments/in Higher Education World /by Jack Moran

This edition of Higher Education World is by far the largest we have produced – an indication of the enhanced level of QS publications and events over the last month.

The four regional rankings – for universities in the Arab region, Asia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and Latin America – always excite interest. They provide opportunities for universities that are yet to feature in world rankings to shine internationally, as well as reflecting the priorities of each region. We examine the results from all four separately.

Another well-established exercise, which has had a lower profile in previous years, is QS’s comparison of the higher education systems of whole nations. Martin Ince looks at the 2016 System Strength evaluation to see whether the success of top universities is a guide to overall national performance.

QS HE System Strength Rankings

May 18, 2016/1 Comment/in HE News, Higher Education World, University Rankings /by QS Intelligence Unit

US ranked world’s best national system for higher education provision

QS’s new ranking assesses nations providing best environment for university success

London, 18^th May 2016: QS Quacquarelli Symonds, global higher education analysts, have today released the 2016 instalment of the Higher Education System Strength (HESS) rankings. The ranking, which aims to identify the best national environments for higher education institutions, sees four European nations among the world’s top 10. The United States’ higher education system ranks in first place, ahead of the United Kingdom’s and Germany’s. France (6^th) and the Netherlands (7^th) join them among the top 10.

The rankings represent a new attempt to use university rankings performance alongside other metrics to assess the strengths and weaknesses of a country’s higher education environment. In doing so, they aim to assist governmental bodies charged with improving their nation’s higher education system to benchmark against competitor nations.

Other key results include:

The United States leads the 2016 instalment, with Canada (5^th) the other top-10 North American nation;
Three of the world’s top 10 are Asian – China (8^th), South Korea (9^th), and Japan (10^th);
The Latin American nation with the strongest higher education environment is Argentina (18^th); it is the only Latin American nation placing within the top 20;
Africa’s best-performing nation is South Africa, in 30^th;
50 countries are ranked this year across six continents;
Europe is more featured than any other continent, with 22 of its nations providing a top-50 higher education institution.

The Market Insight Service by the QS Intelligence Unit

May 13, 2016/0 Comments/in Africa, Central Asia, Europe, HE Internationalisation, Higher Education World, Latin America, Middle East, North America /by QS Intelligence Unit

A few months after launching the Market Insight Service, the QS Intelligence Unit interviewed Dasha Karzunina, International Research Liaison, about its benefits for institutions around the world.

How would you describe this new service?

D.K.: The Market Insight Service is essentially a way for universities to access tailored information on a particular challenge, concern or a topic of interest to help them figure out how they should progress towards a resolution. Whilst the main element of this service is the focus groups which lead to qualitative research outcomes, we also offer surveys to provide quantitative elements and back up our findings.

What kind of topic can be covered by the focus groups?

D.K.: For example, if an institution wants to start a new programme and they want to know whether or not it will appeal to a particular group of students, we could run a focus group with students matching these criteria. This would not only allow us to see what type of program they would be interested but also to find out why they wouldn’t be interested in and what perceived barriers exist. For example, one of our clients, the University of Sydney wanted to recruit more students from India. They felt they needed to reconnect with the region and gain additional information about the motivations of Indian students. With policies and governments changing, students’ expectations get influenced and universities need to be on top of these things when trying to recruit international students. By running focus groups, we helped them understand how they and their country were positioned in the market and what current students were actually looking for. This data can help inform the marketing strategy and implement some key changes into the communication processes.

Making university-industry collaborations work

March 29, 2016/0 Comments/in Higher Education World /by QS Intelligence Unit

In the popular post Busting five myths of university-industry collaboration the key points are that collaborations work when the research addresses a particular need in industry and there is effective communication between all stakeholders.
To address the needs of national economic development, university-industry collaborations are vital. According to research carried out by Science|Business Innovation Board AISBL, a Belgian not-for-profit scientific association, these collaborations need to move from specific projects to strategic relationships. But how do you make a shift from project focused to strategic focus?

Here are nine key learning points suggested in the report, to help your institution achieve this shift:

1. University leadership is vital

2. Built-in flexibility works best in long-term strategic partnership

3. Develop the strategy based on a shared vision

Indian Students Are Increasingly Struggling To Stand Out

March 16, 2016/0 Comments/in HE News, Higher Education World, Trends /by Dasha Karzunina

As part of our quest for more qualitative research about international students’ motivations, we visited one of the key student recruitment markets – India. Did we learn something new about the way Indian students select universities abroad? Certainly. Did we confirm some of the stereotypes that already existed? Somewhat.

Let’s start with a stereotype that we have found some evidence for…

1. Indian students’ parents are actively involved in their educational and career choices.

Although this is still the case, it would seem the attitude here is shifting. A number of students have told us that their parents will actively and sometimes inevitably give them advice on what to study and which countries/universities to target. What’s unclear is just how much influence this actually has on their decisions. When we probed students further on this topic, they would often say that they feel they have to consider their family’s views even if they don’t always agree or feel they have the most relevant experience to be providing advice on the matter but would then seek advice from elsewhere.

In with the new and out with old? Or lessons learnt from the past? Remembering and Re-imagining Education

December 3, 2015/0 Comments/in Africa, Awards and Recommendations, Conferences, Distance learning, Europe, HE Internationalisation, HE News, HE Reforms, Higher Education World, Internationalisation, Latin America, Masters, Masters students, Middle East, North America, Performance Evaluation, UK, Uncategorized, United States /by Deena Al Hilli

In light of the upcoming Re-imagine Education Awards, the innovative global competition launched last year by QS and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania to find the world’s top higher education pedagogical innovation. I started reminiscing about my own university experience, and one particular course came to mind when I looked closely at Hybrid Learning. At QSIU, we are proud to have a team with a diverse skill set, a range of over 12 languages, and have come from various different universities from around the world. Below is an account of a few QSIU team members who share their own memorable experience of past pedagogical methods that have been particularly effective.

QS publishes the first QS Graduate Employability Rankings!

November 26, 2015/0 Comments/in employers, Higher Education World, Methodology, QS APPLE, QS Graduate Employability Rankings, Trends, University Rankings /by QS Intelligence Unit

The pilot edition of the Rankings applies QS’s new innovative approach, intending to take the discussions on employability rankings to the next level. Stanford leads this first edition; more than 20 new institutions place in the top 50.

Employability has been a hot topic for the Higher Education industry for years. With far easier access to a far broader selection of universities, it became an even more relevant aspect of students’ decision making. QS has been measuring employability in all of its rankings, with our Employer Reputation Survey running for over 20 years. But given the public’s special interest in this topic, it was time to expand the analysis, step out of the comfort zone, and create a new, specific ranking.

The primary aim of the QS Graduate Employability Rankings is to help students make informed choices for their educational futures based specifically on the ability of their chosen university to help them succeed in the employment market. Thorough research conducted over the course of 13 months saw consultation with, and input from, academics, university representatives, companies, students and alumni. This year’s experimental methodology was extensively refined throughout the year, and we are delighted to have introduced – for the first time ever in our rankings – unique metrics such as graduate employment rate and university partnerships with employers.

HEW Newsletter – Methodological Changes

October 10, 2015/0 Comments/in HE News, Higher Education World, QSWUR, Uncategorized, University Rankings /by Jack Moran

The twelfth edition of the QS World University Rankings is now online.

We pride ourselves on keeping the Rankings methodology as stable as possible, so that the results provide a genuine year-on-year comparison of the world’s top universities. But this year we have made a few improvements, one of them especially important, to our methodology.

The significant change we have made concerns our measure of academic paper citations per faculty member. This accounts for 20 per cent of each university’s possible rankings score. As before, we have used five years of publications data from the Scopus database as the foundation for this figure. However, we have long recognised that this approach favours institutions with a substantial commitment to the Life Sciences and Medicine, which account for 49 per cent of the citations in Scopus.

Join Apple, Google, edX, Noodle, Wharton and Harvard to Reimagine Education

October 7, 2015/0 Comments/in Awards and Recommendations, Conferences, HE News, Higher Education World /by QS Intelligence Unit

If you intended to enter the Reimagine Education Awards, the innovative global competition launched last year by QS and the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania to find the world’s top higher education pedagogical innovation, entries for 2015 have closed.

Well over 500 projects from 40 countries have been submitted. The overall winner will receive a US$50,000 cash prize and all shortlisted projects will be featured on the Reimagine Education 2015 e-guide, receiving global visibility.

This means that it’s now time to book for the Reimagine Education Conference and awards event.
It will be held at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania on December 7-9.

Global Salary Trends of Masters Graduates Recruitment

September 29, 2015/0 Comments/in Africa, Asia-Pacific, Central Asia, employers, Europe, HE News, Higher Education World, Latin America, Masters, Masters students, Middle East, North America, Trends /by Christina Yan Zhang

I gave a speech on 15th September 2015 to Graduate Recruiters Network to a group of employers on the latest global salary trends of masters graduates recruitments. They asked me to summarise key points I said at the meeting. Here it is.

I would also like to take this opportunity to thank my amazing QS colleagues especially Benjamin Clayton and Susan Gatuguta Gitau whose great support and fantastic work has enabled this major research piece possible.

Key Findings:

After the major fall in salary levels between 2013 and 2014, 2015’s responses have shown signs of recovery. While salaries have not risen across the board – Eastern European salaries fell slightly, while Asia Pacific saw a major drop – the overall trend is one of growth, which should give students working on their postgraduate degrees a lot to be optimistic about.

Asia Pacific’s salary drop was especially dramatic considering it had been rising since 2012. It is currently at its lowest point since 2011. Eastern Europe’s salaries have declined for the second year in a row, and 2015 is its lowest salary level so far. Africa & Middle East has broken out of its own two-year decline and is growing again, while Latin America and Western Europe have recovered from their 2014 slump. Salaries in the US & Canada, on the other hand, are on a two-year streak of growth, and are at their highest point yet.

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