ABSTRACT
University rankings are currently attracting considerable interest in higher ed ucation. Although only a small fraction of all higher education institutions in the world actually are included in global university rankings, there is a lot of public media coverage on the results of the annual ranking exercises (Dill and Soo 2005; Hazelkorn 2011). Global university rankings have been heavily criticised for their methodological approach, for the data they choose to collect and how information is systematised and weighted (Harvey 2008; Kehm and Stensaker 2009; Yorke, 1997). At the same time, they are still assumed to impact higher education in various ways (Hazelkorn 2013). Not least, one could suspect rankings to direct public attention towards excellence and the notion of ‘world-class universities’ (Deem et al. 2008; Hazelkorn 2013; Salmi 2009).
