2012 Academic Survey sign-up facility
by Baerbel Eckelmann
Academic Reputation is one of the six key aspects utilized to compile the QS World University Rankings® and it is considered as the world’s most viewed global evaluation of university research strength. The views of the most informed stakeholders count.
Over 2,700 academics have signed up since the process was launched in February 2010, so, please join these faculty members, university leaders and administrators and register your interest here. It will only take a minute.
UK university admission system may undergo major overhaul
For more than 50 years, applicants to UK universities have followed the same procedure. However, this may all change soon, as the University and College Admissions Service (UCAS) has proposed a revamp of the undergraduate admission process, which will see students applying to university after they receive their exam results, rather than before as at present. This change may come into effect as soon as 2016.
The key findings of a UCAS review into the admissions procedure were published in a report titled Admissions Process Review Consultation. The report found the current system of applying to universities to be ‘complex and difficult to navigate’ and not easily understood by applicants. The current system has been put under pressure by the huge surge in the number of applicants in the last five decades. There were only 80,003 applications in 1963 compared to almost 700,000 in 2010.
The proposed post-results system of application is considered by UCAS to be potentially more user-friendly because it will be based on actual rather than predicted grades. Evidence suggests that there may be confusion among some applicants about how the current system works. UCAS states that in some courses almost 50% of applicants submitted predicted grades which failed to meet the minimum entry requirements. More than 30% of applicants provided incomplete information, and this percentage was higher among international students, who found it hard to understand the system. Read more
The European plan
By Martin Ince, convener of the QS Academic Advisory Board
Anyone working in a European university may think they have enough to do already, but the European Commission does not agree. In a September policy document, it has put them front and centre in the hunt for economic growth.
The Commission’s major economic document, the Europe 2020 Strategy, already emphasises higher education and research as the route to higher skills and higher levels of innovation.
Despite many years of urging from Brussels, only about six per cent of the European workforce are researchers, lagging Japan at 11 and nine for the US. In addition, European targets for research and development spending have almost all been missed, and with the exception of the UK, European universities’ performance in world rankings is best described as modest.
In EU customary style, this Commission document regards further European integration as an important part of the solution. It has persuaded education ministers of member states to aim for 20 per cent of students to do at least some overseas study or training by 2020, twice the current figure. It also wants the European Quality Assurance Register to get involved in academic quality assurance in the hope that common standards will encourage mobility and make qualifications from other European nations more acceptable.
The problem with these initiatives is that education, at school and university level, is one of the roles which national governments, and in some cases devolved administrations, guard most enthusiastically. However, the existence of the Framework Programme for research, the European Research Council, and a range of initiatives on student mobility and qualifications recognition, does give the Commission some influence over higher education priorities.
It is now setting up a “high-level group” to produce new proposals for the modernisation of higher education. This group’s members will be announced in 2012. They are intended to produce their first report, on excellence in teaching, in 2013.
The document also opens up the possibility of new streams of cash for member state universities. The Commission may support universities to develop internationalisation strategies reaching beyond the EU, in the search to make Europe a prime destination for top talent. Officials have acknowledged that while the US has long been a magnet for bright academics, Asian nations are now aiming to attract them too.
The Commission is especially keen on anything that gets academic research into industrial use. It is already running some pilot projects called Knowledge Alliances which are intended to do this. Next could be European Industrial Doctorates and special Doctoral Schools with an innovation mission. There are also plans to build up traineeships and other forms of graduate training.
These plans have much in common with Talent 2030, a UK-level campaign launched in October by the Council for Industry and Higher Education, a joint business/academic forum. Its main call is for a campaign to get more women into manufacturing and engineering. To do this it suggests much stronger connections between companies and universities, and the establishment of a new elite manufacturing college for UK talent.
The Commission document is available on http://tinyurl.com/42rq2ll
QS University Rankings: Latin America™ launch event a big success
By Danny Byrne
The first ever ranking of Latin American universities was launched by QS on 4th October with an event at Canning House in London. Attended by an important number of embassies from Latin America in UK, journalists, universities in the UK, and other key stakeholders, the event was sponsored by IELTS and supported by the Foreign Commonwealth Office and the Canning House, and viewed live online by over 2,000 people among universities, students, employers, media and independent organisations from Latin America and other countries in the world.
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/31537680 w=600&h=480]
The event was opened by Professor Maxine Molyneu, Director of the Institute for the Study of the Americas, who welcomed the new ranking as a positive development for universities in the region.
“This exercise draws attention to the significant achievements that Latin America has made in higher education, and serves as a reminder that a good number of universities have attained international standing for the quality of their research and teaching programs,” Molyneu stated. “The information will help to support international exchange and collaboration between scholars and institutions, and that in turn will help to advance knowledge”.
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/31548199 w=600&h=480]
Introducing the new exercise, QS Managing Director Nunzio Quacquarelli situated QS University Rankings: Latin America™ within an evolution toward more nuanced and targeted QS research exercises, stretching from the first QS World University Rankings® in 2004 through to the QS Asian University Rankings™, QS World University Rankings® by Subject, QS Stars™, and the now QS University Rankings: Latin America™.
“QS serves the informational need of students and parents first and foremost, and we have set out to innovate in the information we provide since our launch in 1990,” he stated. “These rankings meet a real need for information for a major part of the world’s population”.
QS Head of Research Ben Sowter pointed to increased student mobility as one of the factors driving the need for greater comparative information on the region’s universities, citing as an example the 250% growth in international students in Chile between 2000 and 2008. “There has been a dramatic change in some of the migration patterns and some of the decisions being made by international students in the region,” Sowter stated. “While much of that mobility stems from within Latin America, increasingly European students are beginning to look to the region as a potential destination.”
Sowter outlined the detailed consultation with Latin American institutions that QS undertook while finalizing the methodology for the rankings. A survey of over 110 institutions in the region identified the importance of factors such as the proportion of academics with a PhD, web presence, and research papers per faculty, which were introduced for the first time alongside more staple QS rankings criteria such as academic and employer reputation, student/faculty ratio and research citations.
“University systems in Latin America are now among the fastest changing and fastest growing in the world,” said Sowter. “We have been able to gather an unprecedented level of information to put together a much richer comparative picture of Latin American higher education than has ever been compiled before”.
QS University Rankings: Latin America™ Project Manager Liliana Casallas emphasised the wider importance of the rankings for universities in the region, and outlined the extensive consultation that ensured that data was available from all universities in the region: “This has just been a very valuable exercise for universities in data collection, integration and communication within the different departments”, Casallas stated. “For some it has been easier than for others, but this is one of the indirect benefits of participation in this type of study”.
Casallas also stressed that the rankings will expand and develop as they mature, with universities becoming more familiar with data collection processes and continual work being carried out by QS to develop new assessment criteria. “The next edition of QS will have more challenges, such as developments in the methodology, expanding and improving channels with universities for data collection, strengthening data collection in Central America in particular, increasing our operational capacity, and including new partners and sponsors”.
[vimeo http://vimeo.com/31538413 w=600&h=480]
To follow the video conferences and dowload the presentations please click here
QS Stars rated Irish universities showcasing their strengths
By Stephanie Braudeau
Two Irish universities have recently been rated by the new global rating system QS Stars. They are taking the opportunity to publish the results on their website. The institutions have been evaluated against 8 criteria: Research, Employability, Teaching, Infrastructure, Internationalisation, Innovation, Engagement and Specialist criteria; each criterion being divided in specific indicators.
The universities received an overall star rating and individual star ratings for each criterion. Both Irish universities achieved 5 Stars in multiple criteria. Showcase on University College Cork and University of Limerick.
University College Cork achieved 5 Stars overall:
University of Limerick achieved 4 Stars overall:
If you would like to receive information about QS Stars, please contact Mrs Deena Al Hilli deena@qs.com or visit the dedicated QS Stars page on http://www.topuniversities.com/qsstars/home
HE News Brief 25.10.11
by Abby Chau
- CHILE: Student protests have erupted in Santiago
- CHINA: Collaboration of 11 institutions to form the Beijing Tech
- INTERNATIONAL: A new report by the World Bank follows 11-leading universities
- UK: A BBC investigation into graduate employability
- NETHERLANDS: Call on cap for foreign student numbers Read more
Supplement QS University Rankings: Latin America 2011/2012
Supplement 2011/2012 for the first QS University Rankings: Latin America
- Ben Sowter introduces this year’s research and the results tables.
- Danny Byrne reflects on the results of the rankings and looks at some of the issues surrounding access to higher education for students from low-income backgrounds.
- John O’Leary introduces QS Stars, a new university rating system that has been implemented during 2011.
- Liliana Casallas looks at the status of collaboration agreements between Latin American universities and those elsewhere in the world.
HE News Brief 18.10.11
by Abby Chau
- UK: A new report outlining the higher education outlook
- LATIN AMERICA: A new rankings of the region has raised questions about governmental spending habits
- INDIA: Foreign branches must adhere to too many restrictions
- US: Some institutions have closed foreign branches
- AUSTRALIA: Trends for international student numbers Read more
Map of Top Latin American Universities
The following map offers a snapshot of the top 200 institutions included in the 2011 QS University Rankings – Latin America™.
To access the complete version of the map, please, click here. (*)
Created by: Martin Juno.
(*) Please, consider that the map is presented for reference only and may contain errors or omissions of any geographic, location or rank feature.
2011 rankings season draws to a close
By John O’Leary, QS academic Advisory Board
This week sees the end of the international rankings season, with QS publishing the first-ever comparisons of Latin American universities and Times Higher Education (THE) issuing the second edition of its global rankings with Thomson Reuters.
The moment provides an opportunity to take stock of the main rankings before yet more organisations join the field. The European Commission, for example, may soon publish the first results from its U-Multirank project, while the OECD is still piloting its Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes (AHELO) initiative, which tests students in different countries in a range of subjects from economics to engineering. Probably the most significant development of 2011 was the publication by QS of the first rankings by individual subject.
The 26 tables are the initial response to a demand from prospective students for more granular information on the university departments in which they will actually study. There will be considerable interest in the academic community this week in the changes in methodology made by THE. The magazine’s attempt to broaden the focus of international rankings was welcomed by many of its readers, but the flaws in its original methodology underlined the difficulties inherent in such an approach. Read more
