opening academic year speech by frans van vught

University profilesInternational rankings, institutional maps

and the need to discuss the structure of

Dutch higher education

Frans van Vught

Opening academic year 2012/13

Maastricht University, 3 September 2012

UNIVERSITY PROFILES | International rankings, institutional maps and the need to discuss the structure of Dutch higher education

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1. National innovation policies

Over the last two and a half decades the higher education systems of the developed countries have

undergone unprecedented transformation. Much of this change has been motivated by an increased

appreciation of the influential role that human capital now plays in the new global economy. As the

sociologist Ralf Dahrendorf (1979) perceptively observed, higher education has become the primary

determinant of an individual’s ‘life chances,’ and as a consequence all developed countries have adopted

a higher education policy of ‘massification’ (Trow, 2000), rapidly expanding first and second level degree

enrolments of their higher education systems. National debates about higher education reform, therefore,

have first of all been dominated by concerns with the educational function of higher education institutions

and have focused attention on the issues of university access, the efficient financing of university edu-

cation, and quality assurance.

Over the same period there has also been a growing appreciation among policymakers of the way

in which international forces have altered the basis of economic development (Soete, 2006). In the

global market, natural resources are no longer a key factor in economic growth. There is an observable

trend in many countries towards de-industrialisation, increased international outsourcing of traditional

industries as well as routine service functions, and a corresponding government concern about how

to promote innovation and technological change as a principal means of sustaining international

competitiveness. In many countries, national innovation policies have begun to shape and supersede

traditional higher education and research policies (Balzat, 2006; Nelson, 1993; OECD, 2005).

Over the last 25 years we have realised that international forces are changing the basis

of economic development. Markets are becoming increasingly interconnected. Goods, services, capital,

labour, and knowledge move around the world with increasing speed in order to find the best conditions.

Natural resources are no longer the dominant factor in economic growth. We live in a globalised world.

Generally speaking, it appears that globalisation leads to increasing national specialisation.

his process of specialisation, which is amplified by scale and learning effects, creates a reallocation

of production processes between countries and forces nations to look for their international

comparative advantages. Given this situation, national governments try to identify and develop their

specific strengths. They try to increase their location attractiveness for business firms; they try to attract

mobile production factors; they develop their sociocultural profiles; and they try to increase their

innovation capacity.

Many nations now seek to promote innovation as a key driver of economic growth. In particular

Western industrialised nations try to find their comparative advantages in the production of knowledge-

intensive goods and services. To better compete in a globalised economy they increasingly focus on

knowledge, creativity, and innovation. In this context higher education and research organisations have

become important targets for national policy-makers as they are major contributors to the knowledge

economy environment.

UNIVERSITY PROFILES | International rankings, institutional maps and the need to discuss the structure of Dutch higher education UNIVERSITY PROFILES | International rankings, institutional maps and the need to discuss the structure of Dutch higher education

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2. Effects on universities

Globalisation and the increased focus of national governments on innovation policies have had signifi-

cant impact on the international higher education landscape. Let me explore three major strands of this

impact, all of which constitute major challenges to universities and other higher education institutions

and, as I will argue, create an urgent need for them to strategically develop their ‘institutional profiles.’

Mission overload

Universities are increasingly facing rising expectations and an expanding set of challenges. They are

expected to address the world’s major problems – eg those related to our natural environment; the settle-

ment and movement of people; pandemics; poverty; terrorism etc. The European Union, for example,

has formulated a number of ‘grand challenges’ that will be the leading topics in their new research

funding program, Horizon 2020. Worldwide there is widespread expectation that universities should be

able to research an increasingly broad range of problems in an ever-growing holistic fashion and at an

accelerated pace. As our societies become more knowledgeable, universities come under increasing pressure

to expand, transfer and apply new knowledge in order to solve the problems confronting the world.

In addition, these expectations are becoming increasingly diversified. Universities are expected to

produce the knowledge and human capital required to meet the needs of the modern knowledge society,

playing a central role in innovation processes, contributing to regional development, increasing social

inclusion and participating in to the resolution of global problems. Governments tend to translate

these multiple expectations into roles and responsibilities, often backed by earmarked funding or with

conditions attached to general budgets. Universities themselves tend to take on a wider set of activities,

partly through political and social pressure and partly in response to market opportunities.

The result is an accumulation of mission elements, often leading to mission overload, which blurs

strategic vision and risks becoming a serious distraction from core business. Precisely because of these

increasing expectations and challenges, universities need to reassess and clarify their missions, goals

and priorities, carefully defining their institutional profiles.

Global research competition

On a worldwide scale, company labs are increasingly putting an end to their basic research activities.

The pressure in a number of industries to quickly secure major revenue streams has led to the scaling

back or closure of industrial research laboratories with the capacity for long-term research. Instead,

companies are concentrating their research efforts on short-term results, while adopting a strategic

global approach to more basic research which is increasingly reliant on offshore partnerships, academic

collaboration and outsourcing to established networks of scientific expertise.

In order to redesign their systems of higher education and research and to adapt them to the new

demands of globalisation and competitiveness, national innovation policies appear to take various

forms. In a comprehensive international comparative study, my colleague David Dill and I identified two

broad categories of national innovation policy strategy (Dill & Van Vught, 2010). The first and largest

category comprises what could be called prioritisation strategies. These policies are characterised

by features such as foresight analyses in the science and technology sectors, priority allocation

and concentration of resources, and quality assessments of research outputs. They reflect the

notion of national planning, including the well-known drawbacks of central steering.

We can cite many examples of prioritisation strategies; let me mention just a few. In Australia

both the Commonwealth and state governments have engaged in research priority setting, emphasizing

areas of science that will enhance economic competitiveness. In Finland the funding agency for tech-

nology and innovation, TEKES, explicitly funds university research programs in selected technology

fields seen as priorities in terms of Finnish industrial development. Even in the US, the National Science

and Technology Council recently defined a number of interagency research programs in areas deemed

of strategic importance to the national economy.

The other category of innovation policies places an emphasis on market forces and competition. The

policy characteristics of these competition strategies include an emphasis on competitive allocation

of resources, encouraging entrepreneurial university behaviour, deregulating the higher education

sector, and encouraging multiple sources of funding. The pre-eminent example of this strategy is the

US federal science policy with its emphasis on a national marketplace of competing private and state

universities, limited federal control, and the competitive allocation of funding by research funding

agencies. But aspects of this type of competition strategy can also be found – to a greater or lesser

degree – in a number of other countries. Canada, Germany and Japan, for example, have all adopted a

competitive approach to strengthening research training, through either competitive national fellow-

ships to support PhD students or competitive grants for the development of selected research schools.

The United Kingdom has diversified the funding base of their universities by offering competitive ‘third

sector’ funding to promote greater knowledge transfer between universities and industry.

The Netherlands offers a clear example of the prioritisation strategy of innovation. A few years ago the

Dutch national Innovation Platform identified a set of ‘national key areas’ where both fundamental

research and knowledge transfer should be increased. Meanwhile our national innovation

policy has developed into a strategy of coordinated ‘top sectors’ with ‘innovation contracts’, ‘human

capital agendas’ and ‘general framework agreements’ with both the university and the HBO sectors.

The national Review Committee for Higher Education and Research, which I have the honour to chair,

recently analysed the submissions of all the universities and HBO institutions against their future

profiles, including the extent to which these submissions reflected the identified national innovation

priorities. Also in the Netherlands, current higher education and research policies are to a large extent

influenced by our national innovation agenda.


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institutional profile – appears to be a key knock-on effect of national innovation strategies in many

higher education systems.

The higher education literature suggests two key factors assumed to have an impact on the level of

diversity: governmental regulation and market competition. Governmental regulation (for instance a

binary system regulation) is thought to limit the scope for higher education institutions to develop

their own profiles and so can be expected to limit diversity. Market competition is thought to offer

leeway for institutional profiling and therefore is assumed to lead to higher levels of diversity. However,

empirical research has shown these to be false assumptions. On the one hand considerable market

competition, in particular in the US higher education system, does not necessarily lead to more diversity

(Birnbaum, 1983), while on the other hand regulated binary systems often show more diversity than less

regulated non-binary systems (Huisman et al., 2007). It has been suggested that the strategic positioning

of individual higher education institutions, and particularly their ability to occupy favourable niche

positions, may play an important role in terms of the overall level of diversity among higher education

systems. Not only do higher education institutions react to the constraints and opportunities in their

environment (including governmental regulation and funding), they also initiate behaviour that allows

them to carve out sustainable positions from which to project their specific profiles, competing only

with a specific group of often international institutions with similar profiles (Van Vught, 2008; Fumasoli

& Huisman, 2013).

The question of increasing institutional diversity in higher education systems thus brings us again to

‘institutional profiling’. Governments intending to increase this diversity increasingly focus on the strategic

profiles created by higher education institutions. Making these profiles transparent and agreeing

on how they fit in the overall higher education system is an effective way to diversify higher education

systems. There is incentive for universities and other higher education institutions to sharpen their

profiles and to develop them as key strategic tools in positioning their institution in both a national system

and international context. Institutional profiles are an effective instrument for enhancing visibility and

reputation, and providing justification for their very existence.

National innovation policies, with their emphasis on the application of new knowledge, serve to

encourage universities to participate in these new global research networks. In effect there appears to

be increasing competition between nations to make themselves attractive to footloose corporate R&D

investments. In their innovation policies nations aim to prioritise and concentrate their own research

expenditures to achieve competitive scale and quality. In addition, nations increasingly show a willing-

ness to coordinate their own research investments with large international research budgets, like those

of the European Union.

As a result universities are confronted with the challenge of selecting and investing in those

research fields in which they can compete on a global scale. This often requires risky investments in

major facilities, equipment and research teams for the longer term, more often than not expanding

the normal 3- to 5-year terms of conventional research funding schemes. In the present global world of

research it is the ability to marshal resources, including intellectual capability, that allows a univer-

sity to achieve a significant advantage ahead of the competition. Strategic research management has

become one of the most important aspects of modern university leadership.

Very few universities have sufficient capacity to compete alone in the contemporary context in

any research field. The most successful universities worldwide collaborate with others, including their

competitors, at different points along the supply chain. They work together when they do not have

specific distinctive competitive advantages, when they can share common costs or when they see

opportunities to expand the scale of their activities or their joint reputation. Partner selection in priority

research fields therefore becomes extremely important and involves consideration of multiple factors,

including complementary capabilities, reputation for reliability, and academic prestige. Modern university

research management implies a clear view of an institution’s research strengths and weaknesses in a

competitive global research market and the courage to select and develop a set of research field priorities

as a major defining part of the university profile.

Higher education system diversity

In addition to the creation and application of new knowledge, the other crucial dimension of any

national innovation policy is human capital formation (Ritzen, 2012). Higher education organisations are

urged to increase participation rates and particularly the supply of well-trained ‘knowledge workers’ in

the prioritised sectors in order to allow the successful implementation of the national innovation policy.

Expanding higher education participation requires an increase in the diversity of educational

provision in terms of curriculum content and orientation, quality and price. The ‘massification’ of higher

education implies the need not only to expand higher education systems but especially to diversify the

supply forms of higher education in order to reflect the needs of a greater diversity of potential learners.

This is why globalisation and the focus on innovation in many countries appear to trigger diversification

policies in higher education. The urge to diversify – both in terms of programs offered and in terms of


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justified by scientific theories, logically coherent sets of statements which, moreover, can be tested to

see whether they are consistent with the facts.

Failing scientific theories, sports have been organised with (democratic) forums that have been

accepted as the bodies authorised to set rules. The conceptual frameworks behind sports league tables

are well-established: the rules of the game define the winners and leagues tables are created from the

results. Yet those rules have been designed by humans and may be subject to change: in the 1980s-90s

football associations went from awarding two points for winning a match to three points, changing

not only tactics in the game (more attacks late in a drawn match), but to some extent the league table

outcomes as well.

This disquisition into sports illustrates the lighter side of the epistemological point about university

rankings. All rankings are made up of selected indicators that imply the conceptual framework through

which reality is addressed. There is a body in charge of choosing those indicators. In sports, such bodies

are recognised organisations and it is accepted that they design and redefine the rules of the game,

including the indicators. It is equally understood that rules and indicators are not derived scientifically

but are artificial and vary by sport: rugby and football are different and it is impossible to say whether

the number one rugby team is a better sports team than the number one football team. Because there

is no such thing as a theory of sports per se. There are theories about sport psychology, sports training

or sports fans’ behaviour, but not a scientific theory of the ‘best’ sport.

The rules of the university rankings game are equally arbitrary, because there is no scientific theory of

‘the best university’ nor even of quality of higher education. But unlike sports, there are no official bodies

accepted as having the authority to define the rules of the game, nor is there an explicit understanding

that different conceptual ranking frameworks (using different indicators) define distinctly different

competitions and produce different and incomparable rankings. There is no understanding, in other

words, that the Shanghai ranking, for example, is a ‘game’ that is as different from the Times Higher

ranking game as rugby is from football. Equally, there is no understanding that the organisation making

up a set of rules and indicators has no more authority to do so than any other organisation.

The issue with the usual university rankings is that they tend to be presented as if their collection of

indicators reflects the definitive quality of an institution; they have the pretension, in that sense, of being

guided by what is in reality a non-existent theory of higher education quality.

The current global university rankings produce comparisons of university performance profiles. But

they do so, generally speaking, on the basis of a weak methodology, leading to substantial validity

problems (Van Vught & Ziegele, 2012). In addition, a large majority of the universities included in these

rankings are judged on the basis of a profile that can hardly be interpreted as appropriate. Current

global rankings create comparisons based on the apparent assumption that all universities should be

assessed as comprehensive research-intensive universities with a substantial research volume in the

sciences and medicine.

3. University rankings

Since we have been talking about institutional profiles now for awhile already, let us briefly discuss

what they are. I see institutional profiles as the descriptions of what higher education institutions are

and/or want to be. Institutional profiles display what institutions do, how good they are at it, and how

they compare to other institutions. Institutional profiles can be divided into activity profiles and perfor-

mance profiles. Activity profiles describe the actual activities of an institution in terms of focus, volume,

priorities, etc. Activity profiles are descriptive – they map the set of activities that defines the various

tasks that an institution sets for itself. Performance profiles, on the other hand, show how well an insti-

tution performs these tasks. Performance profiles are evaluative and imply a judgement in terms of the

output and impact of an institution’s activities.

Generally speaking, an institution’s profile reflects the dimensions of its mission. These can be the well-

known basic dimensions of teaching & learning, research and knowledge exchange. But an institution

may wish to emphasise other dimensions as equally important aspects of its mission, such as interna-

tional orientation or regional engagement.

By providing information about the activities and/or performance of a higher education institution in

terms of the dimensions of its mission, institutional profiles serve as transparency instruments allowing

both internal and external actors (including students, funders, governments) to get to know the institution

and to assess it as a potential fit with their needs and priorities.

As transparency tools, institutional profiles are related to rankings and league tables. But in what way

are they related? Let us explore for a moment the miraculous world of academic rankings and university

league tables.

Nowadays league tables are all around us. In sports, for instance, there are seasonal league tables for

baseball and football and lists ranking the number of times cyclists have won the Tour de France. Since

the early part of the 20th century we also have league tables in higher education and research, global

university rankings usually showing Harvard as the best university in the world, followed by the names

of a number of other globally renowned universities. But while sporting league tables are well-accepted,

university rankings remain hotly debated – and rightly so. Aside from the well-known methodological

criticism, there is an important epistemological argument why university rankings should be

approached with extreme caution. Let me briefly outline this argument.

Each and every observation of reality is theory-driven: every observation of a slice of reality is driven

by the conceptual framework being used. In the scientific debate, this statement has been accepted

at least since Popper’s work (Popper, 1980): he showed abundantly that theories are ‘searchlights’ that

cannot encompass all of reality, but necessarily highlight only certain aspects of it. He also showed that

scientific knowledge is ‘common sense writ large’, meaning that the demarcation between common

sense and scientific knowledge is that the latter has to be justified rationally. Scientific knowledge is


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THE RANKING 2007 - 2011

Figure 2: Ranking positions of Dutch universities in the Times Higher Education Ranking (THE), 2007 – 2011

The third global university ranking is the QS Top Universities Ranking, named after Quacquarelli

Symond Ltd, a company that used to produce the rankings for the Times Higher Education (until 2010)

but also offers its own league tables. According to the QS Ranking, the best university of the Netherlands

is still the University of Amsterdam, while Leiden and Utrecht appear to be fighting for 2nd and 3rd place.

Maastricht is ranked around 100th out of the world’s best 300 universities.

Nevertheless, as we all know, these rankings are now reality, and they are here to stay. Let us see what the

most prominent global rankings have to say about the performance of Dutch universities in recent years.

According to the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), also known as the ’Shanghai

Ranking‘, the best university in the Netherlands is Utrecht, which according to the Shanghai Ranking

scored a position of around 50th out of the 500 best universities in the world. Leiden University comes

second (around 70th). Another four Dutch universities are in the top 150 (University of Amsterdam, the

Free University Amsterdam, University of Groningen and Radboud University Nijmegen). Maastricht

University climbed to within the top 300 universities worldwide in 2011.

SHANGHAI RANKING 2007 – 2011

Figure 1: Positions of Dutch universities in the Shanghai Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), 2007 – 2011

The second ranking is the Times Higher Education (THE) ranking. According to this, the University of

Amsterdam was the best Dutch university from 2007 to 2009 (ranking around 50th among the top 200

worldwide), but after 2010 (when the THE ranking changed its methodology) first Eindhoven University

of Technology and then later (in 2011) Utrecht University became the Dutch ‘number 1’. Maastricht University

is now 197th in the THE’s ranking of the top 200 universities ( just before the University of Twente in 200th

position). However, as I am sure Maastricht was happy to report, also according to the THE Ranking,

they were in the top 20 of the young universities worldwide.


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LEIDEN RANKING 2011/12

All countries Europe NL

University of Twente 64 11 1

Wageningen University 69 13 2

Erasmus University Rotterdam 74 17 3

Free University Amsterdam 75 18 4

Eindhoven University of Technology 84 24 5

Utrecht University 92 26 6

Leiden University 100 30 7

University of Amsterdam 104 31 8

Delft University of Technology 115 35 9

University of Groningen 148 56 10

Radboud University Nijmegen 183 76 11

Maastricht University 206 86 12

University of Tilburg - - -

Open University - - -

Table 1: Ranking positions of the Dutch universities in the Leiden ranking (CWTS), 2011/12

These different league tables demonstrate the substantial variety in the outcomes of international

rankings, which can be attributed primarily to differences in methodologies and particularly in the

selection of indicators applied in these rankings. The Shanghai ranking consists of a combination of

bibliometric indicators (largely research activity and little research impact), data on Nobel Prize and Field

Medal winners and a calculation of the productivity per staff member. Due to its selection of indicators, this

ranking has a strong bias towards research, particularly in the natural sciences (for instance, publications

in Science and Nature are counted twice). The current Times Higher Education ranking combines a

number of bibliometric indicators with a worldwide reputation survey and has added some indicators

on the learning environment, research volume, internationalisation and industry-related research. The

reputation survey (by which international academics are asked about the ‘quality’ or rather the reputation

of universities around the world) and the bibliometric analysis each make up more than one third of

the ranking score; the learning indicators count for only 15%, while the other elements are even (much)

smaller. The THE ranking is still very much a ‘reputation ranking’ (although less so than before) and is

largely focused on research. The QS ranking consists of a reputation survey among academics (making

up 40% of the rankings), a reputation survey among employers (another 10%), a research impact analysis,

a staff-to-student ratio (each 20%) and data about internationalisation of staff and students (each 5%).

The QS is first and foremost a reputation ranking reflecting the opinions and knowledge of academics

(and to a lesser extent employers) about the assumed ‘quality’ of a university. Like the other two rankings

it is mainly focussed on research. The Leiden ranking is entirely based on bibliometric indicators and aims

to compare research organisations with impact measures taking into account the differences between

QS RANKING 2007 - 2011

Figure 3: Ranking positions of Dutch universities in the Quacquarelli Symonds Ranking (QS), 2007 – 2011

Finally, let me show you a table of the Leiden ranking outcomes for 2011/12. The Leiden ranking is a bib-

liometric impact ranking of approximately 1000 universities worldwide based on their research pub-

lication and citation data. According to the Leiden ranking the University of Twente has the greatest

research impact of all the Dutch universities, which places it at 64th worldwide. Maastricht University

is ranked 206th worldwide.


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4. Mapping university profiles

There is another way to analyse university profiles. Rather than taking a specific ideal type as the base

for comparing a variety of profiles and concluding that those universities lacking the ideal type profile

should rank at the lower end of the league tables, it begins by making the range of profiles visible and

transparent and only comparing universities with similar (or largely similar) profiles. Rather than com-

paring all types of fruit in one overall approach, this approach compares apples with apples and oranges

with oranges. This is called ‘mapping’ and it aims to portray the specific activity profiles of individual

institutions in a number of profile dimensions. The European U-Map tool (Van Vught, 2009) has been

developed to allow the creation and analysis of these profiles, offering snapshots of an institution’s

activities on different dimensions. U-Map can be accessed online and offers two tools (the Profile Finder

and the Profile Viewer) that allow stakeholders to analyse institutional profiles and carry out specific

comparative studies (benchmarking). The six dimensions of U-Map are:

• Teaching & learning

• Student profile

• Research involvement

• Regional engagement

• Involvement in knowledge exchange

• International orientation

For each dimension, sets of indicators have been developed, with institutional profiles comprising the

scores on all or a certain number of the dimensions. A profile reflects those areas where an institution

is active and indicates the intensity of activities per dimension. The U-Map profile of Maastricht University

looks as follows:

U-MAP UNIVERSITY MAASTRICHT

Figure 4: U-Map presentation of the University of Maastricht

disciplines. This ranking concentrates on research impact and accordingly only judges universities’ re-

search performance.

All these rankings appear to be based on the assumption that research is the most important

dimension of a university’s profile and that university reputation is driven by research. In addition, several

rankings value research in the natural sciences and medicine more than research in other fields. The

university profiles that are implicitly being assessed in these rankings are profiles with large research

volumes especially in the sciences and with strong performance in these fields. The current global rankings

largely project a one-dimensional image of a ‘world-class university’, luring institutions that take these

rankings seriously (and I am afraid that many do, although they may deny it) into imitative behaviour,

academic drift and even manipulation and obfuscation of their actual performance.


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A few European universities with profiles strongly resembling Maastricht’s are the Ecole Polytechique

Fédérale de Lausanne (a well-known and highly reputable Swiss university), Telecom Bretagne (one of

France’s most prestigious Grandes Ecoles) and the University of Southern Denmark (a merged university

in Odense). In the Dutch university system the Universities of Groningen and Nijmegen appear to have

profiles rather similar to Maastricht’s, and to a lesser extent this goes for Erasmus University Rotterdam

and the University of Tilburg as well.

The point I’d like to stress is that comparing the performance of universities with similar profiles

is far more interesting and useful than ranking universities with a wide range of differing profiles. Of

course it is up to the universities to choose their profiles but once this is done, it allows for effective and

useful benchmarking processes. In addition, a university that knows its profile well and knows which

counterpart institutions have similar profiles is able to identify to external stakeholders the role and

position it occupies within its higher education system and how it wants to be held accountable. In

this sense institutional profiles are also an important instrument for assessing the effectiveness and

efficiency of higher education system structures.

This profile shows that Maastricht University has a strong profile in teaching & learning (dark blue)

as well as in research (red) and that it is extremely active in terms of international orientation (yel-

low). The most recent data show that the percentage of international students at Maastricht University

is 43%, well ahead of universities like Wageningen (23.5%), Twente (15.4%) and Delft (14.7%) (source:

1CijferHO-2011). Maastricht University rightfully presents itself as an international research-intensive

university that is “leading in learning”.

The U-Map database also allows us to find universities that are comparable to the Maastricht profile:

U-MAPS OF COMPARABLE UNIVERSITIES

Figure 5: U-Map presentations of a selected number of universities with fairly similar profiles


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(U21, 2012). However, if you take a closer look at this study, it appears that the Dutch universities do not

reach this position because their international enrolment or resource levels are so high but because of

the large volume of academic output and particularly because our regulatory environment is seen as

attractive. Compared to other systems, the Dutch higher education system is seen as having a favourable

policy context, in particular because of the significant institutional autonomy.

A crucial question of course is whether our university system can remain at this level of international

performance and quality, and perhaps climb the ladder even further, or whether we should expect that our

position will weaken over the years to come. The most recent (2012) Shanghai ranking seems to suggest

that we are loosing some ground to the international competition. We should keep in mind that

this competition is strong and that many governments worldwide are trying to make sure that their

universities will operate at the cutting edge of intellectual and scientific development and are among

the selected group of ‘world-class universities’ (Salmi, 2009). Let us have a general look at what is going

on in a number of countries with respect to the international competition for knowledge and talent.

It is often argued that the international forces of globalisation and the increasing importance of

the modern knowledge economies combined with a massive future growth in learner demand around

the world will give rise to a radically different paradigm in the supply structures of higher education

over decades to come. Higher education system structures may very well change significantly, involving

both a diversification in institutional providers and novel combinations of different institutional profiles.

During a recent discussion with some 100 university presidents from around the world a future

scenario for the overall global higher education provision structure was developed. This scenario shows

the following types of institutions (Gallagher, 2012):

• a top echelon (perhaps around 50) mainly stand-alone highly prestigious, highly resourced compre-

hensive universities

• international consortia of a next group of (perhaps 100–200) universities, sharing resources and

offering joint and mutually accredited programs

• a range of niche institutions with specialisations in a few fields of research and education, both corpo-

rate and as public-private partnerships, some of them linking with professional occupational practice

• a great diversity of primarily local and regional teaching institutions, both public and private, as well

as in public-private partnerships

• a set of high-tech, primarily virtual global teaching providers.

Whether such a scenario will appear to be realistic or not, is not so much the point. It underlines that

in any national higher education system the continued international competition for knowledge and

talent leads to some crucial challenges for higher education and research policies.

First, it should be clear that a major implication of the current international developments in higher

education and research is that it is no longer enough for higher education policy to be nationally ref-

erenced. In the context of the increasing international competition for talent and the need for varying

5. Higher education system structures

The Dutch university system may be judged as one of the best in the world. All Dutch universities (with

the exception of the Open University which has a special position in the system) are to be found among

the world’s top 500 universities. If we accept for the moment the choices of indicators and methods used

by the Shanghai and THE rankings, we can, based on their data, make a ranking of the ‘best’ university

systems in the world. In the following table this ranking is produced by calculating the ratio of the

number of universities in a country in the rankings divided by the total number of universities in the

country (see table 2).

THE ‘BEST’ UNIVERSITY SYSTEMSShanghai 2010 THE 2010

The Netherlands 1 (.92) 1 (.77)

Israel 2 (.88) -

Sweden 3 (.69) 4 (.38)

New Zealand 4 (.63) 12 (.13)

Switzerland 5 (.58) 2 (.50)

Norway 5 (.58) 11 (.14)

Denmark 7 (.50) 4 (.38)

Hong Kong 7 (.50) 3 (.40)

Belgium 9 (.47) 12 (.13)

Australia 10 (.44) 9 (.18)

Ireland 11 (.43) 7 (.29)

Germany 12 (.38) 6 (.36)

Finland 12 (.38) 16 (.07)

UK 14 (.33) 8 (.25)

Canada 15 (.32) 12 (.13)

Table 2: Ranking of higher education systems based on Shanghai 2010 and THE 2010.

The ratio is: nr of universities in ranking / nr of universities in system (Goedegebuure, 2011).

This table underlines that the Dutch universities are of a high academic standard and operate inter-

nationally at the higher levels of intellectual and scientific development. The Dutch university system

indeed is an academic mountain plateau with some smaller peaks that, however, do not reach the

heights of the giant summits of some universities in the US and UK.

A recent international report by Universitas 21 on the performance of higher education systems

worldwide places the Dutch system at a very respectable 9th position in a ranking of 48 higher education

systems. Better systems are found only in the US and Canada, Scandinavia, Switzerland and Australia


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the quality and international appeal of both German research and postgraduate training. The German

Wissenschaftsrat recently suggested that the German higher education system as a whole should

now be further diversified in order to improve its performance. The council wants to put an end to the

“delegitimisation of a large part of the quality spectrum” by only emphasising research excellence, and

suggests new types of institutional profiles which do not fall in the binary typology of universities and

Fachhochschulen (Wissenschaftsrat, 2010).

In France the government announced in 2008 the implementation of the plan now labelled as ‘Poles

de Recherche et d’Enseignement Supérieur’ (PRES) of which the explicit purpose is to establish a number

of world-class universities. The intention is to have universities, grandes écoles and research institutions

align their objectives and efforts and to benefit from a shared utilisation of their infrastructures.

Twenty-one PRES comprising 60 universities and many other institutions were in place by early 2011.

England has had a unified system since the abolition of the binary divide. In the English system

universities are higher education institutions accredited to award degrees and having enrolments of

at least 1000 students. There is a low degree of formal structural diversity but the informal diversity

has increased as result of stronger competition and greater influence of student demand. According to

the UK’s Department for Business Innovation & Skills the size and shape of UK higher education “will

emerge from decisions taken in response to user demand and the changing environment of the 21st

century” (www.bis.gov.uk/he). However, in Wales a complete sector restructuring is envisaged in order

to create more diversity and to position the higher education system to be “the best it can be for the

funds available” (HEFCW, 2011). Similarly in Ireland a national Strategy for Higher Education has been

published arguing a basic need for structural change in order to meet the diverse learning require-

ments, develop critical mass, create sustainability and ensure greater effectiveness and efficiency at the

system level (HEA, 2012).

In Denmark and Finland the governments initiated a number of institutional mergers with the aim of

strengthening the research function of their systems. In Denmark reform began in 2007, and there were

a number of mergers of universities and research institutes, leading to a reduction from 12 universities

to 8 and the integration of research institutes. In Finland at the beginning of 2010 three new universities

were established as a result of mergers of existing institutions while two universities were given special

status as foundations under private law.

In Australia a categorisation of ‘Higher Education Providers’ was introduced in 2011, in order to formalise

a number of key elements of the diversity of the Australian system. This categorisation consists of 5 higher

education provider types that are all allowed to use the label ‘university’ but that are clearly different

in profile (Australian Government, 2011). In addition Australia has launched a model of compacts, which

so far is no more than a performance-based reporting contract model but with the further option to

develop into a funding model of institutional profiles. In several US states (Maryland, Michigan, North

Dakota) these ‘profile funding models’ are already in place, often with the intention of applying perfor-

degrees of scale in contemporary research, many countries are intensifying investment in their lead-

ing universities. A country that wants to stay involved in the global competitive knowledge creation

processes cannot afford to ignore the international position and reputation of its universities and

research institutions.

A second implication is that a narrow focus on strengthening only the top universities will not be

sufficient to meet the wider national and regional innovation needs. The problem is that elite institu-

tions tend to collaborate only with each another, both nationally and internationally, in matters such as

research, student exchange and recognition of qualifications. But national policies also need to address

the profiles and positions of those higher education institutions that are not in the international elite

club. For governments the policy challenge is not only whether to create or sustain elite university

strength (although this is certainly an issue) but also how to balance that aim against other aspects

of the national interest. Governments find it difficult to treat institutions differently and to formally

mark institutional differences. On their side higher education institutions find it difficult to select and

define profiles that differ from the idealised profile of the research university. Yet in any national higher

education system there should be status attached to teaching well, developing graduates for profes-

sional practice, translating research into applications to solve business and community problems and

contributing to regional development. Higher education and research policies are more effective if they

permit some institutions to do a few things very well, rather than having them all doing a lot of things

only reasonably well.

The conclusion is that there is an increasing need for public policy to comprehend the totality of the

higher education and research system. Only such a system-wide policy will allow a government to offer

development opportunities to all institutions (by contributing to a diverse set of institutional profiles),

provide access for students (through pathways enabling mobility within the system) and create the

best conditions for the country to engage in high-level global research (through directed and targeted

research investment).

Until the first half of the 20th century relative little policy attention was given to matters of the formal

structure of higher education and research systems. The policy focus was largely on issues of accessibility,

quality, funding and student retention. But in an increasing number of countries over the last 10 years

or so there has been a noticeable shift of policy attention to the structures of higher education systems

and the profiles of the institutions that make up these systems. Let me mention a few examples.

The German Excellence Initiative, which started in 2006, has been set up to create more world-class

excellence in the German higher education system, particularly in research and research training. In the

two rounds that have taken place 37 ‘excellence clusters’ have been selected and have received an average

budget of €32m each. These excellence clusters aim to establish internationally visible and competitive

‘research beacon’ universities, able to collaborate with non-university research organisations (such as

the Max-Planck institutions), Fachhochschulen and the private sector. The second round enables the

institutions that have already won cluster funding to apply for extra funding in order to further stimulate


22 23

38 HIGH PERFORMING UNIVERSITIES COMPAREDmance-based funding in order to create outcomes that are aligned with state strategic goals and the

objective of creating a high level of institutional diversity (Sparks & Waits, 2011).

The new perspective in higher education policy worldwide is clearly one of structure. The configuration

of national higher education systems is increasingly being analysed in the context of the global competition

or talent and knowledge. National higher education policies cannot avoid trying to optimise their higher

education and research systems in terms of excellence and diversity.

The Dutch higher education and research system belongs among the better systems in the world.

Dutch higher education institutions rightfully enjoy a large autonomy. And Dutch universities generally

score well in international academic performance rankings. But will we be able to hold onto our position

now that other countries have intensified their national higher education policies in order to compete

better internationally? In the final section I will explore two issues: first, will a Dutch university (or a

consortium of universities) be able to reach the very top in terms of the best academic institutions

worldwide? And secondly, what is the future for the Dutch higher education system from an interna-

tional perspective?

Will a Dutch university or a consortium of universities be able to reach the top 25 or so of the world’s best

academic research-intensive universities? To be able to answer this question I undertook a quick and

general analysis of some characteristics of a number of the world’s best universities. From the various

international rankings I took a sample of 25 universities from various parts of the world (US, Canada,

Japan, Australia, China, Europe) making sure that the highest scoring universities were included.

To this sample I added all Dutch universities with the exception of the Open University. For these 38

universities I compared their total enrolment and total annual revenues, and calculated annual revenue

levels per student, assuming that this is a good indicator for the academic investment capacity of a

university. I compared these with their scores on ‘scientific impact’ as measured by the mean normal-

ised citation score (MNCS), which is the average number of citations of the publications of a university,

normalised for field differences, publication year and document type. This scientific impact score is one

of the strong bibliometric indicators in the Leiden ranking. I have assumed that this indicator offers a

good picture of the relative academic strength of a university. Table 3 presents an overview of the sample

of universities, ranked according to the criterion of scientific impact.

Uni

vers

ity#

of s

tude

nts

Tota

l ann

ual r

even

ues

(mn)

Annu

al re

v-en

ues

pe

r stu

dent

(x

1000

)

Scie

ntifi

c im

pact

scor

eSc

ient

ific

exce

llenc

e Sc

ore

ARW

U 2

011 S

core

THE

2011

Sco

re

Mas

s. In

st. o

f Tec

hnol

ogy

(MIT

)10

600

2200

208

2,35

26%

37

Stan

ford

18

900

2100

111

2,06

23%

22

Har

vard

27

600

3850

139

2,04

24%

12

UC

Berk

ely

3600

015

0042

1,99

23%

410

Ecol

e Po

lyte

chni

que

Fed.

de La

usan

ne72

0059

082

1,84

20%

102-

150

46

Cam

brid

ge

1900

010

0053

1,76

19%

56

Oxf

ord

2100

012

0057

1,71

19%

104

Mic

higa

n-An

n Ar

bor

4200

024

0057

1,71

19%

2218

ETH

Zur

ich

1450

090

062

1,63

19%

2315

Edin

burg

h29

000

840

291,

5717

%53

36

Utr

echt

30

500

750

251,

5616

%48

68

Eras

mus

20

500

510

251,

5418

%15

1-20

015

7

Toro

nto

5500

015

0027

1,48

16%

2619

VU A

mst

erda

m25

000

430

171,

4617

%10

2-15

015

9

Leid

en

1950

050

026

1,45

16%

6579

Wag

enin

gen

7000

290

411,

4316

%15

1-20

075

Cope

nhag

en45

000

1050

231,

4316

%43

135

Amst

erda

m32

200

600

191,

4315

%10

2-15

092

Radb

oud

1850

049

026

1,43

14%

102-

150

159

Aarh

us

4300

080

019

1,41

15%

8612

5

Karo

linsk

a In

stitu

te16

000

600

381,

4115

%44

32

McG

ill

3800

088

023

1,4

15%

6428

Uni

Cat

holiq

ue d

e Lo

uvai

n22

000

370

171,

3915

%10

2-15

016

9

Tech

Uni

Mün

chen

2500

095

038

1,36

15%

4788


24 25

The table clearly shows that there are large differences between universities in terms of both volume

(size of the student body) and income (annual revenues) and that the larger or richer universities do not

necessarily have the highest scientific impact scores. However, there is a relationship between annual

revenue level per student and impact score: the universities that have a high level of annual revenues

per student generally speaking score higher on scientific impact. Larger annual budgets for universities

(however they are created, whether through more public funding, higher tuition fees, mergers, or otherwise)

combined with modest student enrolment levels appear to relate to higher scientific impact scores.

Figure 6 presents this relationship.

SCIENTIFIC IMPACT AND ANNUAL REVENUES

Uni

vers

ity#

of s

tude

nts

Tota

l ann

ual

reve

nues

(mn

e )

Annu

al re

venu

es p

er

stud

ent (

e x

1000

)Sc

ient

ific

impa

ct sc

ore

Scie

ntifi

c ex

celle

nce

Scor

e

ARW

U 2

011

Scor

eTH

E 20

11 S

core

QS

2011

Sco

re

Gro

ning

en27

700

570

211,

3615

%10

2-15

013

411

5

Mel

bour

ne46

000

1200

261,

3614

%60

3731

Eind

hove

n U

ni o

f Tec

h75

0031

041

1,35

15%

301-

400

115

146

Twen

te94

0031

033

1,35

15%

301-

400

200

226

Maa

stric

ht

1500

033

022

1,33

15%

201-

300

197

109

Del

ft U

ni o

f Tec

h17

600

510

291,

2914

%15

1-20

010

410

4

Upp

sala

39

500

630

161,

2613

%67

8783

Nor

weg

ian

Uni

of S

&T

2000

055

028

1,25

13%

201-

300

-26

6

War

wic

k23

500

540

231,

2313

%15

1-20

015

750

Chin

ese

Uni

of H

K10

500

300

291,

1712

%15

1-20

015

137

Mün

ster

3600

049

014

1,17

12%

102-

150

-28

0

Chal

mer

s 10

500

300

291,

1612

%20

1-30

0-

202

Toky

o28

800

2050

711,

1311

%21

3025

Tilb

urg

1370

019

014

1,13

11%

401-

500

-40

1-45

0 Ta

ble

3: C

ompa

rison

of a

sele

cted

num

ber o

f hig

h pe

rfor

min

g un

iver

sitie

s wor

ldw

ide

(13 D

utch

and

25 n

on-D

utch

uni

vers

ities

)

Rem

arks

:

1. D

ata

are

deriv

ed fr

om U

-Map

, with

the

exce

ptio

n of

uni

vers

ities

from

the

Net

herla

nds,

the

US

and

the

Uni

vers

ity o

f Tok

yo

2. D

ata

of D

utch

uni

vers

ities

are

der

ived

from

«1 c

ijfer

HO

» (1c

HO

), 20

11

3. Sc

ient

ific i

mpa

ct is

mea

sure

d by

the

Mea

n N

orm

aliz

ed C

itatio

n Sc

ore;

sour

ce C

WTS

, Lei

den

Rank

ing

2011

/201

2/da

ta p

rovi

ded

by R

.Tijs

sen

4.

Rese

arch

exc

elle

nce

is m

easu

red

by th

e Pr

opor

tion

of To

p 10

% P

ublic

atio

ns; s

ourc

e CW

TS/l

eide

n Ra

nkin

g 20

11/2

012/

data

pro

vide

d by

R.Ti

jsse

n

5. Th

e re

venu

es o

f US

inst

itutio

ns a

re th

e ‘co

re re

venu

es 2

010’

as l

iste

d in

The

Inte

grat

ed P

osts

econ

dary

Edu

catio

n D

ata

Syst

em (I

PED

S), 2

012.

6.

Reve

nues

hav

e be

en co

nver

ted

to E

uro

at th

e 20

10 e

xcha

nge

rate

(app

rox.

EU

R 1 =

USD

1.32

)

7. Re

venu

es o

f Uni

vers

ity o

f Tok

yo re

fer t

o ye

ar 2

011 a

nd h

ave

been

conv

erte

d to

Eur

o at

the

2011

exc

hang

e ra

te (a

ppro

x. E

UR

1 = JP

Y 11

5)

Figure 6: Institutional scientific impact versus annual revenues per student: a comparison of 13 Dutch and 25 non-Dutch universities

Figure 6: Institutional scientific impact versus annual revenues per student: a comparison of 13 Dutch and 15 non-Dutch

universities


26 27

universities and HBO institutions will become more clearly defined in years to come. However, what is

still lacking in our higher education system is any discussion about its overall structure. We appear to be

satisfied with our binary system and we appear unwilling to address the issues of differences between

institutions in terms of mission, performance, reputation and quality. In the Netherlands the notion

of system structure is still barely addressed. System level analyses seem to be taboo in Dutch higher

education and are quickly associated with unnecessary ‘grand visions’ and too much government regu-

lation. But our country cannot avoid reassessing the effectiveness and efficiency of its higher education

system as a whole. While other countries move forward in their strategies with respect to their higher

education and research systems, the Netherlands cannot simply wait and see and assume that we will

automatically end up among the top five of the world’s knowledge economies.

As I have indicated, several countries have embarked upon policies to create further differentiation

in their higher education systems in order to create the best possible output in terms of knowledge

and human capital. In several countries steps are taken to create one or a limited number of research-

focused universities of high international standing, while at the same time stimulating other institu-

tions to provide quality education for regional and national development purposes. In these countries

current higher education policies are first of all policies about system structures and about the diversity of

missions and roles of the various institutions that collectively make up these higher education systems.

If we want to keep up with international competition we too need to have a fresh, objective look at

the Dutch system of higher education and research as a whole. Do we have the best set of institutional

profiles in the context of the global competition for talent and knowledge? Do we have the best range

of profiles in order to further develop our knowledge economy? Do we have the best possible spread

and critical mass of research units and infrastructures? Do we want to create one or two universities of

high international standing while stimulating the remaining universities to develop other profiles? Are

we spending our resources as well as we can? Do we provide sufficiently diverse teaching programs to

train a growing diversity of learners? Do we attract the appropriate level and volume of international

talent? Are our knowledge application processes sufficiently effective and efficient?

These and similar questions need to be addressed not only at the level of higher education institutions,

but in terms of the overall higher education and research system as well. Now that in the Netherlands

we have taken the step of designing and discussing institutional profiles, we should be bold enough

to take the next step as well: to analyse our system as a whole. We still have an internationally lauded

higher education system. Let us try to keep it up to at least the current levels of performance and

effectiveness.

This allows us to explore the potential of specific universities to climb the ladder of scientific impact

and academic strength. Let us look at some examples.

In the UK in 2004 the Victoria University of Manchester and the Manchester University of Science

and Technology merged to become the University of Manchester with a stated ambition to be among

the top 25 world-class universities by 2015. In order to reach this goal an extra £80 million was invested

in the new university. The University of Manchester now finds itself in 38th position in the Shanghai

ranking (2011), up from 53rd in 2005. Two more examples are taken from the Danish university system

where recent mergers led to some larger universities as well. I calculated the annual revenue levels per

student for both the University of Copenhagen and Aarhus University in 2006 (before the mergers) and

in 2011. Copenhagen went from a score of 16.6 to a score of 23 on annual revenue level per student, and

from a Shanghai ranking position of 56th in 2006 to 43rd in 2011. Aarhus went from an annual revenue

level per student of 16.7 to 19, and moved in the Shanghai ranking from a position somewhere between

102 and 150 to 86th. Both cases appear to show that a clever merger strategy may create an academically

stronger institution. In Denmark the crucial element in the merger strategy appears to have been the

fact that independent research institutes also got involved in the mergers and helped to create larger

research volumes in the new universities without necessarily increasing student enrolment numbers.

The analysis and the examples show that higher scientific impact scores and higher ranking positions

appear to be produced not so much by creating larger student bodies only. Building a top-level academic

university seems to be done by creating large budgets in combination with limited numbers of students.

The Ecole Polytechnique de Lausanne is a clear example of a relatively small university in terms of student

numbers but with a relatively large budget. And it is a university with a very high scientific impact score.

In our country there is some discussion about a closer and deeper collaboration between the two

universities in Amsterdam as well as between the universities of Leiden, Delft and Rotterdam (Erasmus

University). According to the analysis presented here it should not be expected that collaborations like

these will automatically produce institutions capable of dramatically increasing their scientific impact

scores. Both initiatives will lead to very large institutions with still relatively modest budgets. Their

annual revenue per student levels will barely increase and therefore we cannot expect that they will

easily rise to join the top 25 universities worldwide. The only way for a Dutch university to break the US

and UK hegemony of academic reputation and to reach the top levels in the rankings is to increase its

investment level, particularly in research, while at the same time limiting student enrolment numbers.

From this point of view, as the Danish experience shows, mergers between universities and autonomous

non-university research institutions (like the Dutch NWO and KNAW institutions) may be far more

effective than mergers between universities.

This brings us at the final question: what is the future of our higher education system in the inter-

national context? The Dutch higher education system is a binary system with research universities on

one side of the divide and mainly teaching universities on the other. Institutional profiling has begun

recently on both sides of the divide and we can expect that the various institutional profiles of our


28 29

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