Since 1990 there has been remarkable growth and diversification of worldwide capacity and output in science, and a distinctive global science system has emerged, primarily grounded in research universities, fostered by Internet-mediated communication and publication in English, cross-border authorship and researcher mobility. While global science…

University rankings widely affect the behaviours of prospective students and their families, university executive leaders, academic faculty, governments and investors in higher education. Yet the social science foundations of global rankings receive little scrutiny. Rankings that simply recycle reputation without any necessary connection to real…

This article discusses the University as an institution in three parts, moving from the abstract to the concrete. The first and longest section begins with the University as a social form or type: what it is, its inner motors, what holds it together; and its outer drivers, what holds it in society. The second section remarks on tendencies in the…

For more than two decades, governments around the world, led by the English-speaking polities, have moved higher education systems closer to the forms of textbook economic markets. Reforms include corporatisation, competitive funding, student charges, output formats and performance reporting. But, no country has established a bona fide economic…

This article addresses global postsecondary ranking systems by using critical-theoretical perspectives on power. This research suggests rankings are at once a useful lens for studying power in higher education and an important instrument for the exercise of power in service of dominant norms in global higher education. (Contains 1 table and 1…

This paper evaluates the performance of national higher education systems in 48 countries as measured with 20 variables grouped under the four headings of Resources, Environment, Connectivity and Output. Rankings within each module are then combined into an overall ranking that is topped by the United States followed by Sweden, Canada, Finland and…