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, while exploring the impact that rankings have played on policy, practice, and academic life. The Global Academic Rankings Game contributes to the continuing debate about the influence of rankings in higher education and is an invalulable resource for higher education scholars and administrators as they tackle rankings in their own national and institutional contexts.

Philip G. Altbach is research professor and director of the Center for International Higher Education in the Lynch School of Education at Boston College. He is chairperson of the International Advisory Council of the Graduate School of Education at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, and a member of the International Advisory Council of the National Research University Higher School of Economics.

Maria Yudkevich is vice-rector of National Research University Higher School of Economics in Moscow, Russia (HSE). She also serves as an associate professor in the Economics Department and a director within the Center for Institutional Studies at HSE.

Laura E. Rumbley is associate director of the Boston College Center for International Higher Education, where she also serves as a lecturer in the graduate program in Higher Education Administration. Laura has authored and co-authored a number of publications, the co-editor of the Journal of Studies in International Education, and is chair of the Publications Committee of the European Association for International Education (EAIE).