Emerging economies – Rankings in context

The development of world-class universities is at the heart of the national strategies of many of the globe’s emerging economies.

China’s drive to move from a manufacturing to a knowledge economy has been underpinned by generous funding to help its leading institutions compete with the world’s finest.

In Russia, President Vladimir Putin decreed that five of the country’s universities must feature among the world’s top 100 by 2020 and is backing this up with reforms – and hard cash.

India has prioritised improvements to the quality of its universities in the latest Five Year Plan. And as Brazil seeks to improve its global competitiveness, 100,000 Brazilian students will join the world’s leading institutions under generous scholarships over the next few years.

These initiatives are in no way restricted to the huge so-called BRIC economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China. Countries such as Thailand and Turkey, for example, are determined to develop a thriving knowledge economy.

Progress is clearly being made, and the results are beginning to show in the Times Higher Education, or THE, World University Rankings. In the 2013-14 tables, published in October, China’s top two universities – Peking and Tsinghua – joined the world’s top 50, for example, while India also improved its representation.

But the emerging economies are at different stages of their journey, and there is some way to go before their efforts reach full fruition. The overall world rankings remain heavily dominated by North America and Western Europe.

This means that some of the most dynamic institutions from the developing world are crowded out by established, ‘first world’ universities in the traditional league tables. Their progress and potential is obscured.

New ranking

This is where the inaugural Times Higher Education BRICS & Emerging Economies Rankings come in: a world first, which will examine universities in Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (the BRICS) and 17 other emerging economies. [QS will also produce its first BRICS ranking later in December – Editor.]

The new ranking is a response to growing demand for global league tables that reflect regional and economic contexts, and to the increasing range of institutions that want to benchmark themselves against the world’s best.

So the rankings, to be released online at 21:00 GMT on 4 December 2013 and formally launched at a free event at Koç University in Istanbul on 5 December, will use the same tried and tested methodology as the overall THE World University Rankings – developed after almost a year of open consultation and with informed advice from more than 50 leading experts.

They will use the same 13 performance indicators, covering the teaching environment, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook, weighted in the same way.

We believe it is in the interests of fairness, transparency and consistency to judge the leading research institutions in emerging economies against the already-established standards used to judge the likes of Harvard and Oxford, but in their own economic contexts on a more level playing field.

This commitment to fairness and transparency also ensures that the new ranking will be funded and created entirely independently of any individual government or national agency.

Fairness and consistency was also at the top of our minds when we decided which countries to include in the analysis. The BRICS countries – where the potential is so huge – was the obvious starting point. But it was also clear that to focus on the BRICS alone would be far too narrow.

Beyond the BRICS

The original ‘BRIC’ acronym was coined by Goldman Sachs 12 years ago: South Africa became the ‘S’ when the countries later formed themselves into a more formal group. But the world has changed since then.

Some argued at the time that Indonesia should have been included. Certainly now, with its economic optimism eclipsing, for example, Russia’s, and the huge potential of its relatively young population, Indonesia seems a natural addition.

Also, Turkey is making great strides towards its goal of becoming the world’s tenth biggest economy by 2023. It was chosen to host the launch of THE’s new rankings precisely because there is so much potential for its knowledge-driven economic growth.

So THE will include in its new rankings all countries classified as emerging economies by the FTSE Group in its September 2013 Country Classification: 10 ‘advanced emerging’ economies – Brazil, Czech Republic, Hungary, Malaysia, Mexico, Poland, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand and Turkey – and 12 ‘secondary emerging’ – Chile, China, Colombia, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Morocco, Pakistan, Peru, the Philippines, Russia and the United Arab Emirates.

Of these 22 countries, only 11 are represented in the top 400 of the 2013-14 World University Rankings.

THE sees it as part of its responsibility as a publisher of global rankings to put its data into context, and to paint as rich and as deep a picture of global higher education, in all its exciting diversity and potential, as possible.

* Phil Baty is editor of Times Higher Education Rankings.