What do international rankings tell us about the performance of New Zealand universities?

Each year, the release of the Times Higher Education Supplement (THES) Top 200 and the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) Top 500 university rankings generates significant interest around the world. New Zealand is no exception, with headlines such as “Auckland moves up world uni ranking”, “Five NZ unis make global Top 500”, “Waikato scrambles up world ranking” and “Massey drops, NZ steady in Shanghai rankings” appearing in the media following the release of the 2009 THES and ARWU rankings.¹

As well as generating media interest, it appears that international university ranking systems have achieved some degree of public and policy credibility in a number of countries (Marginson 2007). This is due, in part, to the impact of rankings on the choice of destination of international students, an important source of revenue for higher education institutions. Research suggests that international students are among those most likely to look at league tables when making their decision about where to study (HEFCE 2008).

Although the results of international rankings do not directly influence the government’s tertiary education policy in New Zealand, international students are an important source of revenue for New Zealand universities. In 2008, around 9 percent of New Zealand university income was sourced from international student fees. So it is worthwhile examining international rankings systems to see what they actually tell us about the performance of New Zealand universities.²

This report analyses the underlying data used to compile two of the best known ranking systems, the ARWU and THES.³ In particular, this report examines the individual components used to compile the overall rankings to see where the relative strengths and weakness of New Zealand universities’ performance are. This report also considers how the results should be interpreted.

The structure of this report is as follows: first, the methods used to generate the THES and ARWU rankings are presented; then, criticisms of the rankings are summarised; this is followed by an analysis of the New Zealand universities’ performance in the rankings; finally, some conclusions are presented.