IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/palcom/v10y2023i1d10.1057_s41599-023-02034-w.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The effect of national higher education initiatives on university rankings

Author

Listed:
  • Congbin Guo

    (Peking University)

  • Xiaowei Hao

    (Stanford University)

  • Jiaqi Wu

    (China Agrcultural University)

  • Tizhen Hu

    (Peking University)

Abstract

National higher education initiatives are government-led strategies designed to enhance university quality, international ranking, and competitiveness through targeted policy measures and investments. In order to improve human capital and global competitiveness, many countries worldwide such as China, Japan, Russia, and Germany have implemented national higher education initiatives in recent years. This study used panel data from the top universities in the QS ranking and ARWU ranking to evaluate the impact of these initiatives on university rankings using a Staggered Difference-in-Differences Model and explore the underlying reasons for heterogeneity in effectiveness across different regions and countries. It found that national higher education initiatives have a significant positive impact on universities’ rankings by improving 12.1 to 17.7 places in QS and ARWU rankings respectively. Compared to European universities, universities in Asia-Pacific region improved rankings more obviously. The findings suggest that developing countries can learn from the experiences of other countries in implementing national higher education initiatives and improving higher education quality through encouraging competitiveness while offering autonomy, optimizing higher education management model, enhancing regular quality evaluations, and dynamic withdrawal mechanism.

Suggested Citation

  • Congbin Guo & Xiaowei Hao & Jiaqi Wu & Tizhen Hu, 2023. "The effect of national higher education initiatives on university rankings," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-9, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:pal:palcom:v:10:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-023-02034-w
    DOI: 10.1057/s41599-023-02034-w
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41599-023-02034-w
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1057/s41599-023-02034-w?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Mira Fischer & Patrick Kampkötter, 2017. "Effects of German Universities' Excellence Initiative on Ability Sorting of Students and Perceptions of Educational Quality," Journal of Institutional and Theoretical Economics (JITE), Mohr Siebeck, Tübingen, vol. 173(4), pages 662-687, December.
    2. Matveeva, Nataliya & Sterligov, Ivan & Yudkevich, Maria, 2021. "The effect of Russian University Excellence Initiative on publications and collaboration patterns," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(1).
    3. Ellen Hazelkorn, 2009. "Rankings and the battle for world-class excellence: Institutional strategies and policy choices," Higher Education Management and Policy, OECD Publishing, vol. 21(1), pages 1-22.
    4. Jacek Pietrucha, 2018. "Country-specific determinants of world university rankings," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 114(3), pages 1129-1139, March.
    5. Gabriele Marconi & Jo Ritzen, 2015. "Determinants of international university rankings scores," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 47(57), pages 6211-6227, December.
    6. Gawellek, Bastian & Sunder, Marco, 2016. "The German excellence initiative and efficiency change among universities, 2001-2011," Working Papers 142, University of Leipzig, Faculty of Economics and Management Science.
    7. Torger Möller & Marion Schmidt & Stefan Hornbostel, 2016. "Assessing the effects of the German Excellence Initiative with bibliometric methods," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(3), pages 2217-2239, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cantner, Uwe & Grashof, Nils & Grebel, Thomas & Zhang, Xijie, 2023. "When Excellence is not Excellent: The Impact of the Excellence Initiative on the Relative Productivity of German Universities," MPRA Paper 118139, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Civera, Alice & Lehmann, Erik E. & Paleari, Stefano & Stockinger, Sarah A.E., 2020. "Higher education policy: Why hope for quality when rewarding quantity?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(8).
    3. Mónica Benito & Pilar Gil & Rosario Romera, 2019. "Funding, is it key for standing out in the university rankings?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 121(2), pages 771-792, November.
    4. Krieger, Bastian, 2023. "Heterogeneous regional university funding and firm innovation: An empirical analysis of the German excellence initiative," ZEW Discussion Papers 23-006, ZEW - Leibniz Centre for European Economic Research.
    5. Benito, M. & Gil, P. & Romera, R., 2020. "Evaluating the influence of country characteristics on the Higher Education System Rankings’ progress," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(3).
    6. Ibrahim Shehatta & Khalid Mahmood, 2016. "Correlation among top 100 universities in the major six global rankings: policy implications," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 109(2), pages 1231-1254, November.
    7. Tommaso Agasisti & Ekaterina Shibanova & Daria Platonova & Mikhail Lisyutkin, 2018. "The Russian Excellence Initiative For Higher Education: An Econometric Evaluation Of Short-Term Results," HSE Working papers WP BRP 201/EC/2018, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    8. Mohammed R. AlShareef & Ibrahim A. Alrammah & Nasser A. Alshoukani & Abdulaziz M. Almalik, 2023. "The impact of financial incentives on research production: Evidence from Saudi Arabia," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 128(5), pages 3067-3089, May.
    9. Wu, Jiang & Ou, Guiyan & Liu, Xiaohui & Dong, Ke, 2022. "How does academic education background affect top researchers’ performance? Evidence from the field of artificial intelligence," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 16(2).
    10. Daraio, Cinzia & Bonaccorsi, Andrea & Simar, Léopold, 2015. "Rankings and university performance: A conditional multidimensional approach," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 244(3), pages 918-930.
    11. Leporia, Benedetto & Geuna, Aldo & Mira, Antonietta, 2018. "Scientific Output of US and European Universities Scales Super-linearly with Resources," Department of Economics and Statistics Cognetti de Martiis LEI & BRICK - Laboratory of Economics of Innovation "Franco Momigliano", Bureau of Research in Innovation, Complexity and Knowledge, Collegio 201806, University of Turin.
    12. Nicolas Carayol & Emeric Henry & Marianne Lanoë, 2020. "Stimulating Peer Effects? Evidence from a Research Cluster Policy," Working Papers hal-03874261, HAL.
    13. Shengbo Liu & Xiaoting Luo & Miaomiao Liu, 2023. "Was Chinese “Double-First Class” Construction Policy Influential? Analysis Using Propensity Score Matching," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-13, April.
    14. Sacha Lussier & Jean-François Chanlat, 2015. "L’évaluation des établissements d’enseignement et le rôle des enseignants-chercheurs en gestion : l’intériorisation institutionnelle de l’internationalisation," Post-Print hal-01655876, HAL.
    15. Łukasz Wiechetek & Zbigniew Pastuszak, 2022. "Academic social networks metrics: an effective indicator for university performance?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(3), pages 1381-1401, March.
    16. Ioan Ianoş & Alexandru-Ionuţ Petrişor, 2020. "An Overview of the Dynamics of Relative Research Performance in Central-Eastern Europe Using a Ranking-Based Analysis Derived from SCImago Data," Publications, MDPI, vol. 8(3), pages 1-25, July.
    17. Ming Yuan Hsieh, 2020. "The Most Sustainable Niche Principles of Social Media Education in A Higher Education Contracting Era," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-18, January.
    18. Antonin Bergeaud & Arthur Guillouzouic & Emeric Henry & Clement Malgouyres, 2022. "From public labs to private firms: magnitude and channels of R&D spillovers," POID Working Papers 041, Centre for Economic Performance, LSE.
    19. McAleer, M.J. & Nakamura, T. & Watkins, C., 2018. "Size, Internationalization and University Rankings: Evaluating Times Higher Education (THE) Data for Japan," Econometric Institute Research Papers EI2018-43, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Erasmus School of Economics (ESE), Econometric Institute.
    20. Isabel M. Habicht & Mark Lutter & Martin Schröder, 2021. "How human capital, universities of excellence, third party funding, mobility and gender explain productivity in German political science," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(12), pages 9649-9675, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:palcom:v:10:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-023-02034-w. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.nature.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.