Is it necessary to withdraw from international rankings?

Campuses in Indonesia need to refrain from participating in boycotting international rankings.

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The University of Zurich's (UZH) recent decision to withdraw from international university rankings in 2024 came as quite a surprise.

As quoted in the news site, the big decision to withdraw from rankings such as Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings and QS World University Rankings was taken to eliminate all forms of unhealthy competition that focus only on publication numbers rather than prioritizing content quality.

Previously, Utrecht University, which ranks among the top 100, has also taken similar steps. Three prestigious universities in China, Renmin University of China, Nanjing University, and Lanzhou University, have also stated that they will no longer participate in international rankings that are deemed unsuitable for the characteristics of the education system they want to develop.

Renmin University has decided to withdraw from international rankings because it has never been ranked in the top 500 in the world. Despite the fact that the quality of their education is claimed to be no less than other reputable universities such as Fudan and Shanghai Jiao Tong. This has made the university doubtful whether participating in this ranking competition really benefits the university.

Also read: The Death of Global Higher Education Rankings

The use of international rankings increasingly marginalizes small universities. In the US, for example, rankings generally benefit large universities that have greater financial resources and endowments, such as UCLA.

They have the privilege to allocate funds flexibly to improve research output and publications. Including funding open access costs for reputable international journals, which can increase readership and citations, as an important assessment metric on which global rankings are based.

A similar pattern occurs in Hong Kong, which in the last 10 years has emerged as a new world education center. State universities (PT) that receive large operational and research funding injections from the government are generally able to recruit world-class lecturers with fantastic salaries.

The aim is to improve the university's ranking through publication and internationalization efforts. This privilege is not widely possessed by private campuses with more independent funding sources, which creates a gap in global ranking score acquisition.

It also occurs in Indonesia. Incentives and financial support for research and publication activities are generally better for large universities. These campuses are also able to bring in world-class experts to improve the quantity and quality of research outputs. At the same time, there are still campuses that are unable to even fund domestic conference trips.

This fact shows that the disparity in resources and challenges in ranking have created injustice for small universities.

In addition to the gap between universities, Welch (2023) has recently discovered a gap between academic disciplines. According to him, some international rankings are biased towards science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) and therefore ignore the importance of methods and other fields of study, such as humanities and social sciences.

Given the complications of the ranking issues above, the question is, is it necessary for universities in Indonesia to also withdraw from international university rankings?

Thus, if we also think about leaving the international ranking, the author is worried that this decision will be a wrong step.

Perspectives of prospective students and the business world

For prospective students, choosing a university is a big decision. They want to ensure that they make the best choice for their future. By looking at international rankings, they can find out the strengths and weaknesses of various educational institutions, as well as the reputation of universities, both overall and in specific academic fields.

It is true that world rankings are not the only factor in choosing a university, as the author considered when choosing Lingnan University in Hong Kong as an option to continue doctoral studies. From the rankings, Lingnan is ranked 641st in the world, while UGM is currently ranked 263rd in the world (according to QS World Ranking), making it far more prestigious to pursue a doctoral education at UGM.

However, for the study of social policy in Asia, Lingnan is a leading university, like National Taiwan University in Taiwan or Yonsei in South Korea. In addition, doctoral studies are also very personal. The study preferences and expertise of prospective supervisors are much more important than the university itself and not all universities can accommodate the very specific study interests of prospective students.

Another consideration for prospective students is the assurance that the chosen university can provide connections to the job market in the future. The World University Rankings 2023 emphasizes employability as the main metric.

From an industrial perspective, international rankings can simplify the job recruitment process. By focusing on universities that have high employability scores, companies can target their recruitment more efficiently, to target graduates who are not only good at academic abilities, but also the soft skills and practical experience needed in the professional world .

This may have slipped our attention as we only focus on the weaknesses of global ranking, because the criticism is directed at publication targets. Unconsciously, more and more rankings highlight universities in developing countries that have made significant progress in the quality of education and research.

For example, the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) 2022, which features several universities from Asia and Africa, marks a shift towards more inclusive representation by prioritizing diversity, equality, and inclusivity, thus regarded as the most democratized ranking process.

In their release, ARWU stated that with the updated indicators, two universities from China, Central South University (95) and Nanjing University (96), entered the ARWU Top 100 for the first time; and 35 other universities entered the Top 1,000.

The emergence of ARWU indicates that in the future, it is highly likely that there will be many metric adjustments in global rankings that are more fair and democratic.

Take action

UZH and other universities on the list that boycott global rankings already have everything necessary (pre-condition advantages) to become superior universities, even without having to be in any ranking agency. Starting from reputation, academic culture, productivity, to the sense of knowledge production, which has become the moral responsibility of academics - rather than just an administrative responsibility.

What is not normal is the excessive administrative burden that distracts teachers from what should be their moral-intellectual responsibilities.

Meanwhile, the accumulation of knowledge products they have produced for decades, such as patents, has also been widely disseminated to several countries, allowing them to have a sustainable financial flow circulation as well.

Imagine if Indonesian campuses took a boycott against global rankings, while our higher education institutions are still struggling against serious academic integrity issues.

Therefore, if we also think about withdrawing from international ranking, the author is actually worried that this decision will be a misstep. It is not impossible that we will hear more frequently about lecturers who are rarely involved in research, no publications are produced, or if there are, they are published in predatory journals, or lecturers who often leave class for secondary work, and so on.

Therefore, universities in Indonesia need to restrain themselves from following the trend of boycotting international ranking until at least the "minimum" prerequisites, such as academic integrity, are equivalent to those of only one university that withdrew.

Also read: The Problem of Our "World Class University"

For Indonesian universities, global rankings remain the most realistic tool to create a competitive climate that is still very low. The existing disparities should be addressed by government intervention to redistribute opportunities through funding research support to more universities. This is still very possible considering our R&D allocation is only 0.24% of GDP, one of the lowest in the world.

Holding on to the global ranking system does not mean that campuses have to sacrifice content quality and prioritize quantity of publications as the main indicator. In fact, the focus, whether it is a larger proportion of publications, content quality, or both, is still a negotiable choice so that the campus is not forced to be oriented as a machine that prints journal articles, book writings, and proceedings exclusively.

However, the policy of publication targets for lecturers in Indonesia is still reasonable. For example, for the highest position like a professor, the requirement to obtain their rights is to produce at least one scientific work published in a reputable international journal. For lower positions, there is still an option to publish their scientific work on a national journal platform that is indexed by SINTA.

What is not normal is the high burden of excessive administration that diverts the focus of lecturers from what should be their moral-intellectual responsibility. This is the forefront of the real problem that should be on the list of higher education reform priorities in the country, rather than following the desire to exit international rankings.

Tauchid Komara Yuda, Lecturer at the Department of Social Development and Welfare UGM