ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the influence of global rankings on and their use by a medium-sized, research-intensive English university outside the top-ranked Russell Group of large research universities in the United Kingdom. The University of Reading has been an international university for much of its history in that it has recruited international students to its UK campus and now has aspirations to be a global university with its new offshore campus and ambitious international strategy. Selectivity in funding research in the United Kingdom has played a key role in maintaining status quo, with declining total funding being gradually concentrated in fewer academic departments and universities. However, some mid-ranking UK universities are beginning to slip in the world rankings, as institutions from emerging systems supplant them especially where governments are investing large amounts of public money in small number of universities. Truly global university strategy would seek to support the development of other nations' higher education systems and individual institutions they comprise.
