Chair: Ben Jongbloed, CHEPS, University of Twente
Time: Thursday 4th March, 16.30 - 18.00.
Venue: Room Amphi C.

Download the full panel introduction.

The goal of the roundtable is to discuss methodological, policy-related and political issues that surround classifications, rankings, league tables, and other attempts to compare higher education institutions from national and international settings. We want to look at the classifications and rankings as such, their design and use, and also briefly at the indicators that they are based on, and their underlying data.

All of the participants in the roundtable are working on projects that aim to build transparency tools for higher education and research systems. All, in one way or another, make use of institution-level data and indicators, presenting this in ways that allow for comparing research groups, higher education institutions, or maybe even entire higher education systems. The list of their projects looks as follows:

• CHE Ranking (Gero Federkeil)
• EUMIDA (Andrea Bonaccorsi, Stig Slipersaeter)
• European research university Observatory (Stig Slipersaeter)
• Leiden Ranking (Robert Tijssen)
• U-Multirank project (Koenraad Debackere, Robert Tijssen, Gero Federkeil)

These projects go beyond the national level and try to highlight diversity in the system, even across national borders, to enable stakeholders like students, institutions, and policymakers to get a clear picture of differences between institutions. In the roundtable we will discuss these classification/ranking projects in order to work out more general implications for the design of transparency tools. What lessons can be learned from the above projects? What standards need to be observed when selecting the dimensions/indicators in the classifications and rankings? What data concerns do we need to be aware of? What use can classifications and their indicators have for policy-makers?

Some of the issues we would like to discuss in the round table are:

1. Rankings and classifications: the difference
2. The users of classifications
3. Dimensions for classifications/rankings and their underlying indicators
4. Data, definitions, and other concerns
5. Classifications and policy-making

Members of the audience are most welcome to express their views and intervene during the roundtable. The discussion will be moderated by Ben Jongbloed (CHEPS, University of Twente).