How to improve university ranking

QEC – KASBIT

 To change a university, you need to change people’s incentives

Strategy is supposed to change behavior, you have to provide new incentives for your staff, and monitor performance from the top.• Strategy works best if it is a simple list of key priorities.

To attract the best faculty, you need the best leaders

• Hire the best scholars you can and put them in positions of power - pro vice-chancellor for research, dean or head of department.

• If the Dean is not a good scholar, he or she may have limited credibility and power within the institution.

• Who would pay attention to a head with few publications telling other staff to do improve their research output.

Control quality through hiring panels• Vice Chancellor is the standard

bearer of the institute, must set quality threshold and control the process.

• Make sure the very best researchers are on hiring and probation committees.

• Hiring panel made up of grade-two researchers is unlikely to want to hire a grade-one researcher.

• Why make life’s difficult for us by hiring better people.

• No tolerance for mediocrity – make new list of appointable personalities.

Hire the best

• VC must create and drive this process and talk to hires personally as well as the director and head of HR.

• Presence of VC on major panels or at least review the candidate.

• Prior hiring of Dean or HoD do no hire staff.

• Power to make a better team.

Know the talent list and congratulate people

• Be fully aware of its most talented staff.

• Make sure that people on the ground let the vice-chancellor know when someone does something commendable.

• HR department - know exactly who your outstanding people are, and whether they are happy or not.

• Attracting top staff is a increasingly expensive process - be sure to hang on to those you have!

No pain, no gain• If you want to change an

organization, it is going to hurt. • We all tend to prefer the status

quo.

• Culture of “you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours”

• Head of Department should be someone who can take tough but fair decisions.

 Pay a top salary if you want the right department head

• There aren’t many more important posts in a university than the position of head of department.

• Heads of department should be among the best scholars in the department.

Incentivize raising research money

• Why members of a department should do it when there is rarely any mention of incentives. If you want more research money raised in the university, offer to give something back in return.

• Extra 10 percent