World-Class or World-Ranked Universities ? Performativity and Nobel Laureates in Peace and Literature

It is erroneous to draw too many conclusions about global university rankings. Making a university’s reputation rest on the subjective judgement of senior academics and over-reliance on interpreting and utilising secondary data from bibliometrics and peer assessments have created an enmeshed culture of performativity and over-emphasis on productivity. This trend has exacerbated unhealthy competition and mistrust within the academic community and also discord outside its walls. Surely if universities are to provide service and thrive with the advancement of knowledge as a primary objective, it is important to address the methods, concepts, and representation necessary to move from an emphasis on quality assurance to an emphasis on quality enhancement. This overview offers an analysis of the practice of international ranking. US News and World Report Best Global Universities Rankings, the Times Supplement World University Rankings, and the Shanghai Jiao Tong University Academic Ranking of World Universities are analysed. While the presence of Nobel laureates in the hard sciences has been seized upon for a number of years as quantifiable evidence of producing world-class university education, Nobel laureates in peace and literature have been absent from such rankings. Moreover, rankings have been based on employment rather than university affiliation. Previously unused secondary data from institutions where Nobel peace and literature laureates completed their terminal degrees are presented. The purpose has been to determine whether including peace and literature laureates might modify rankings. A caveat: since the presence of awarded Nobel laureates affiliated at various institutions results in the institutions receiving additional ranking credit in the hard sciences of physics, chemistry, medicine, and economic sciences, this additional credit is not recognised in the approach used in this study. Among other things, this study suggests that if educational history were used in assembling the rankings as opposed to one’s university affiliation, conclusions might be very different.


Table 1: Modified version of the Carnegie Classification of universities and other higher education institutions
Source: Carnegie Classifications of Institutions of Higher Education, 2015, http://carnegieclassifications.iu.edu/downloads/CCIHE2015-FlowCharts-01Feb16.pdf Beyond location and constituent differences, gaps in fiscal resources and endowments in long-established universities in the West have left many institutions at a disadvantage, which has led to increased: 1) competitive pressures of the global marketplace; and 2) institutional pressures emanating from performance-based measures generated from funding bodies (e.g.World Bank, IMF, OECD, government) (see Marginson, Kaur, & Sawir 2011).
Since the turn of the 21 st Century, data analysis from rankings, metrics, and performance-based measures in the field of education has resulted in what many term as New Public Management which, in turn, has led to a wave of increased accountability based on evidence-based quality assurance and quality control measures, often at the expense of process.Birnbaum, like many, viewed these as "…self-correcting mechanisms that monitor organizational functions and provide attention cues, or negative feedback, to participants when things are not going well" (Birnbaum 1989, p. 49).This, in a further development, has led to questions of whether universities serve the public or the public good.Marginson and Considine differentiated universities by defining those that might be classified as enterprise, entrepreneurial, and corporate universities, concluding that the enterprise university encapsulated a balanced mix of economic and academic dimensions that maintained research survivability, but in an environment of increased competition and performativity (Marginson and Considine, 2000, p. 5).In this discussion, the question is raised as to what happens in the assessment and evaluation processes when there may be policies, which fail to comply with expectations across cultures and nationstates?How are standardised instruments used when quality education is varied due to student ability and capability?Can processes be improved to avoid data being misused or abused?Finally, who ultimately determines authority in establishing what quality constitutes, and how is quality enhanced with such measures over time?Generally speaking, when any of these issues are raised, there is often outcry about data collection and the quality of the methodologies employed, but with scant mention given to the depth of analysis and nature of assessment.The field of education may be considered a non-exact science, but its standards in research need not be compromised.While quantitative research methodology in education may help to explain and predict phenomena to establish, confirm, or validate relationships and to develop generalisations that may contribute to theory, much of the research employed in interpolating global data sets is still largely qualitative.The work is not only exploratory in nature but it builds on reformative reflections that build theory from the ground up.Moran and Kendall (2009) contend that different methodologies produce illusions of education due to how education is typically viewed as a field of study.While Baudrillard (1994) identifies education as a number of simulations-in other words not reality-the act and pursuit of educational research identifies its weakness in its interdisciplinarity, and "…[that] this will come to mean that critiques of what might be seen as current inadequate practices and policy are only, in a sense, illusionary critiques" (Moran & Kendall, 2009, p. 328).
This analysis does not necessarily address what methodologies are employed to describe international comparisons in educational data.Instead, it is intended to shed light on the validity of the research, meaning the accuracy, meaningfulness, and credibility of the research as a whole.This has major implications for global organisations, which rest institutional reputations on not only the credibility of the data collected but also warranting that the data analysed are pieces of truth when viewed as a contribution to overall knowledge advancement.Moreover, when viewing the data as an aggregate whole, this approach can assist in making generalisations about the world beyond specific situations, interventions, and contexts.

Overseas expansion and globalisation of higher education
The globalisation of higher education has become increasingly valued, particularly in terms of overseas recognition of world-class universities, international rankings, and competition among university researchers.The Information Age has not only transformed the way we communicate and collect information, it has also led to some unforeseen consequences: the standardisation of curricula (Bologna Process, 2018); increased levels of accreditation and accountability; and a general shift towards a utilitarianism within professional, applied degrees, much to the chagrin of those who endorse Newman's idea of a university (Rothblatt, 2006, p. 52).Regarding the latter, Newman's idea of a university was to simply disseminate universal knowledge for the purpose of teaching all who were ready and able.It was intended for preparing the well-rounded individual rather than reinforcing the advancement of the nation-state.Peripatetic, itinerant, and wandering scholars too are increasingly more mobile-both literally and virtually-but are becoming more inclined to seek educational opportunities for economic gain rather than intellectual well-roundedness.This is becoming increasingly apparent in times of economic uncertainty as evidenced in the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-2011.Moreover, students have opted for professional specialised degree pursuits because of their obvious need to seek gainful employment upon successful completion of the degree.
All the above has resulted in a general shift from viewing higher education as something of social value to something that is more of an investment.This may be due in part to the theory of human capital, formulated by Theodore W. Schultz in 1960 (Alladin, 1992).Human Capital Theory helped to justify the expansion of higher education by postulating that the more education a population receives, the greater the benefits in the economy.While individual investment in education is clearly on the increase-particularly in the case of enrolment in private universities-there is a general perception that higher education serves the public good.This, unfortunately, is beginning to wane.The commodification and advancement of knowledge comes at a cost, and while research continues to be an imperative in the modern university, those institutions identified as poorly resourced cannot continue to meet rising demand.Notwithstanding the content of the Carnegie Classification of universities, there continues to be no universal form or definition of what constitutes a university, yet world-rankings of universities continue to shape and manipulate what is perceived as quality and excellence.As Hazelkorn rightly emphasizes, Rankings are a manifestation of what has become known as the worldwide 'battle for excellence', and are perceived and used to determine the status of individual institutions, assess the quality and performance of the higher education system, and gauge global competitiveness.(Hazelkorn, 2015, p. 1) Rankings differ from accreditation, the latter of which has been viewed historically as an award of merit vested by the Pope or, at times, the Emperor in granting licence (Studium Generale) to teach at a university (Neave, 1997).While accreditation agencies have proliferated since the late 1990s at international, national and disciplinary levels, carriage is given to highly prescribed and standardised criteria to audit education-in all its various forms-by peer panels of experts who specialise in various disciplines and who are aware of and sensitive to the educational contexts relative to the audited institution in question.The recent wave of mergers and change of status for several university colleges to universities in the Nordic region helps to highlight the increased importance of these agencies and peer panels.Rankings, on the other hand, have galvanised the commodification of knowledge.As a result, there is a cost associated with knowledge ad-vancement, and while research continues to be an imperative in the 21st Century university, those institutions identified as poorly resourced cannot continue to meet rising demand for research excellence.According to Marginson and van der Wende, This [ranking] process has been encouraged in many nations by policies of corporatisation and partial devolution based on governance by steering from a distance and more plural income raising, a model of provision that reflects informal cross-border norms influenced by practices in the English-speaking nations and the policy templates of the World Bank.(Marginson & van der Wende, 2007, p. 308) This reputational race to the top in the league with the impetus to improve greater public accountability and transparency, has led to an unfair advantage given to resource-rich institutions-predominantly Anglo-centred-and those that excel in the hard sciences.As a result of the increase in compliance policies and regulatory standards imposed on universities and their institutional partnerships, performance-based measures have been pursued at nation-state levels which, in turn, has led to unforeseen consequences such as the following: 1) increased pressure to publish in Anglophone journals and/or those journals that have been ranked nationally or by discipline; 2) evidence of research impact (measured mostly by bibliometrics) as opposed to formative assessments on impact (societal, community and/or individual), since the latter is often considered too subjective; and 3) micro-managerialism of academic performance, collegial competition for increased specialisation and, in isolated cases, collegial sabotage.
Methodologies currently employed by university world ranking organisations also suggest that world rankings are here to stay.The obsession on the part of universities to be identified as world-class do not, however, reflect world rankings.Variables and percentages used in rankings change over time, methods are contested, and the exercises used to evidence quality often help to undermine the very essence of what a university is and how it sets itself apart from others.World rankings prompt universities to focus on similarities based on a narrow listing of measureable variables.World-class universities, on the other hand, may be preconceived as elitist in certain parts of the world, but are increasingly viewed as world-class due to their emphasis on differentiation and carving out their own path.Husén (1991) identifies the modern university as an entity working towards many different goals while at the same time training professionals.Apart from expectations to improve educational access, promote equality, and offer quality instruction, "…it is expected to contribute to the extension of the frontiers of knowledge by high-quality research" (Husén, 1991, p. 184).While academic staff generally tend to give their loyalty to their discipline more than to their employer (the university), if a student demand system dictates what degrees are kept or discarded, this creates angst in maintaining a strategic presence in one's discipline or field of study whether research-active or not.A further complication derives from an increasing obsession with evidence-based performance measures-necessary prerogatives and interventions in higher education at present.Gaps between administrative and academic staff are growing and with increased significance.The organisational culture of the university appears to be increasingly affected by entities which use performance reporting as a management strategy for punitive measures and entities which promote and encourage academic excellence and quality.Notwithstanding a need to bridge these fissures as it should be understood that the ultimate goal is to achieve similar like-minded outcomes, the divide appears most notable in the pursuit of knowledge and its advancement for the academic while parenthetically, the administrator is mobilizing in a quest for greater efficiencies and effectiveness in doing more for less and keeping an eye on the bottomline.

Confidence crisis in academia
An ageing workforce and inadequate succession planning further exacerbates this angst, particularly when universities are asked to slash budgets and casualise staff appointments.The National Center for Professional and Research Ethics (NCPRE) recently developed a new academic unit diagnostic tool (AuDiT) that indexes three levels of academic departmental culture: vibrant, warning, and challenged (see NCPRE, 2018).This tool helps measure how the degree of health in a given academic department, by seeking to judge vibrant, warning, and challenged departmental characteristics and/or nuances.The index suggests that the greater the level of dysfunctional management, the greater the anxiety experienced by staff.This anxiety is transferred to the prospective undergraduate student, who may not necessarily know at the time of university matriculation how to choose an appropriate degree or major.Policies and structures developed to assess the alignment between education and employment are still in the development stage (e.g.OECD Higher Education Programme, 2018).Balancing life and work continue to be a struggle, and standards run the risk of faltering when divisive forces cannot find a common goal of education's ultimate purpose.As Alladin observes, "[t]he university has become a place where a student is trained for an occupation rather than given a broad education in traditional fields" (Alladin, 1992, p. 6).
Given increased regulation, standardisation, and quality control measures intended to improve accountability, metrics and benchmarking are increasingly tied to funding and hence, becoming an evidence-based necessity.The hope is that any form of analytics focuses upon a culture of academic excellence and quality, and that the quality of evidence is tightly monitored and justified; otherwise, it becomes cost-ineffective and dysfunctional.As economic imperatives also become increasingly the norm, the alignment between education and employment will continue to drive transformational change to the traditional disciplines, forcing universities to consider developing qualifications that are highly specialized and/or cross-disciplinary or custom-tailored to meet the individual needs of the consumer, the student.Husén (1991, p. 184) rightly suggests that academic competence must be forced to yield to the power of numbers.The advent of the Information Age has shifted the focus away from Newman's idea (see Rothblatt 2006) to a more utilitarian approach.An understanding of the university as an entity and its possible future can also be attained by the use of demographics.As an example, demographic data, compiled from secondary sources, allow researchers to analyse, interpolate, and replicate from different perspectives (Smith, 2010).This helps broaden opportunities for discovery through comparative analysis and leads to an increasing need to understand situational, country contexts.While caution should be exercised when interpolating results from secondary sources such as the UNESCO Global Monitoring Reports, the data utilised can help verify estimations and make predictions for the foreseeable future.This includes world rankings, as variables change over time as does institutional leadership and context.

The risks and benefits of international education comparisons
Currently, international education comparisons tend to promote the globalisation of education in terms of increased economic trade and human capital.It is predicted that in order for comparative education research to be more useful and practicable for nation-states and institutions alike in the future, there will be an increasing need for students to possess the aptitude and inclination in understanding, interpreting, and analyzing statistical data from large-scale data sources.The higher the quality, the greater the sense of purpose and ownership of knowledge acquisition and advancement.Moreover, it is hoped that a spillover effect may offer greater benefits that might redefine the current system of performativity and productivity.The risks, if further exacerbation continues, is a lack of depth, rigour and robustness in research, which can lead to ambiguities in exceptions to the rule, a general lack of environmental contexts at institutional or local levels, simplistic prescriptions for change, or normative prescriptions of policy and practice.
In the following research to demonstrate how one variable can change the whole dynamic in world university rankings, the utility of using secondary data from the Nobel Peace Institute (Norway) and the Nobel Prize Organisation (Sweden) helps to show how different rankings can be affected.The purpose of this research honours the contribution of the non-exacting science of education in its various forms.While peace and literature are not necessarily directly aligned with the field of education, the understanding of education's ultimate purpose of well-roundedness is considered as offering a contribution to the advancement of knowledge.Generally seen as being the most reliable and used, the Shanghai Jing Tiao rankings award the highest points to institutions which have or have had Nobel laureates in the hard sciences-10% within their respective rankings.However, peace and literature are not listed in the current calculations due to the fact that they are not in the hard sciences.This may be purposeful in the sense that peace and literature are, by nature, subjective fields of study.This research has been undertaken to consider adding Nobel laureates in peace and literature to highlight those institutions that have produced and/or acknowledged the contributions of these notable individuals.This undertaking suggests that a further ranking of universities worldwide might yield a new ranking of institutions that, among other things, value and recognize the contributions of education-a non-exacting science-a field of study that helps to expand and broaden knowledge and its advancement.Notes:  36 Nobel laureates studied in a country other than their home country (anomaly: University of West Indies)  5 were activists  9 who were born in one country but acknowledged for their contributions in another (Israel/Palestine/Germany/Bulgaria/Romania/Macedonia/Yugoslavia/ Poland/Ukraine/Belarus)  44 had no formal education; 1 has yet to finish her formal education abroad  12 were imprisoned, assassinated, exiled, expelled (strongly advised to emigrate), persecuted, or determined to leave their country of origin

Material observations
World-class and world-ranked universities differ as the former place emphasis upon difference and the latter upon comparable similarity.The only shared dimensions of both are the challenges to financial, and administrative capacity given the increasing social demands for higher education (Martin et al. 2007).Variables such as institutional and research reputation are highly subjective and limited to the exposure of differing educational systems.Ranking universities as a whole also undermine the qualities of institutes, schools, and departments that otherwise might attract notice and be valued.Productivity statistics and international involvement vary considerably from year to year and, while such variables are useful to determine social and individual rates of return, the shelf-life of the data are short-lived and difficult to utilise to make comparisons year-to-year.When comparing various methodologies for world-rankings of universities, it is clear that their task is fraught with ambiguities.In other words, ranking is not an exacting science.By concentrating on one variable used in the Shanghai Jiao Tong (ARWU) ranking relating to highly cited researchers and alumni, it was found that Nobel peace and literature laureates were not counted as opposed to those in the hard sciences.This may be because both peace and literature are considered soft sciences and thus, the perceived value in their individual and social rate of return is equivocal and open to contestation.
Given the notion that world-class universities emphasize institutional difference, the addition of Nobel peace and literature laureates to league tables would change current league table configurations of institutional ranks.By developing a specialised listing of institutions on the basis of the presence of Nobel laureates in peace and literature reveals a hallmark of difference and, moreover, captures the essence of what universities are striving for: namely, the desire to be recognised as world-class as opposed to simply being world-ranked.
The process of collecting data on Nobel laureates in literature and peace produced some additional findings.Many Nobel laureates were listed in more than one country, even when individuals fled, left, or were persecuted in their country of origin.Among the top five institutions listed in Table 5, 14 Nobel laureates completed their studies in a second country, suggesting that mobility is not only rife but that one's identity may not necessarily be associated with where one is born.While knowledge may not necessarily be the province of any one nation-state, the marketability of world-class scholars such as Nobel laureates propels nation-states and institutions to recognise high achievement.
The university rankings based on Nobel laureates (Table 5) in comparison to university rankings based on league tables (Table 6) reflect a sharp contrast and set of distinctions.Notwithstanding the noticeable difference in rankings of universities from other nationstates, many of these institutions offer mediums of instruction other than English.By changing one variable, Nobel laureates (literature and peace), which have been omitted in league tables for whatever reason, there is scope to consider specialist rankings as standalone, as they help offset those institutions that appear to meet international benchmarks that are becoming increasingly standardised.In addition, they may help to promote institutions that are unique, different, or set apart from others.

Table 2 :
Listing of university league tables, country of origin, and methodologies used Multiple Sources: Academic Ranking of World Universities; World University Ranking Methodologies Compared; Ranking Web of Universities; US News & World Report Education.

Table 4 :
List of Nobel laureates (literature; peace) according to country and institution where highest degree was obtained Institutions listed in parenthesis are institutions located outside of the Nobel laureate's home of origin.