The Global Academic Rankings Game: Changing Institutional Policy, Practice, and Academic Life

The Global Academic Rankings Game provides a much-needed perspective on how countries and universities react to academic rankings. Based on a unified case methodology of eleven key countries and academic institutions, this comprehensive volume provides expert analysis on this emerging phenomenon at a time when world rankings are becoming increasingly visible and influential on the international stage. Each chapter provides an overview of government and national policies as well as an in-depth examination of the impact that rankings have played on policy, practice, and academic life in Australia, Chile, China, Germany, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The Global Academic Rankings Game contributes to the continuing debate about the influence of rankings in higher education and is an invaluable resource for higher education scholars and administrators as they tackle rankings in their own national and institutional contexts.

Maria Yudkevich is Vice-Rector of the National Research University Higher School of Economics (HSE), and Associate Professor of Economics and a Director at the Center for Institutional Studies at HSE, Russia.

Philip G. Altbach is Research Professor and Founding Director of the Center for International Higher Education in the Lynch School of Education at Boston College, USA.

Laura E. Rumbley is Associate Director of the Center for International Higher Education and Lecturer in Higher Education Administration at Boston College, USA.