The business of international rankings: this is how they are formed thanks to the war between universities

• TOP POWERS. Not everything is bad in Spanish universities

Imagine that every time a Spanish singer hits a monumental hit in Eurovision, a crisis cabinet will meet at the Ministry of Culture and the foundations of the music industry in Spain will be removed. Spain, two points ; L'Spagne, deux points ... and all the groups and performers would go crazy to change style and check chords.

Well, something like this happens every year in the national landscape of higher education every time one of the famous international rankings of universities is published: no Spanish university among the top 200 in the world. At most, one.

The same verdict has been repeated invariably for almost two decades, because it was between 2003 and 2005 when the three main ranks of the sector appeared on the scene: the Academic World Universities Ranking (ARWU), drawn up by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University, that of the specialized magazine Times Higher Education (THE) and that of the consulting firm Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), which in fact was in charge of developing the THE ranking until they separated in 2009 and began publishing one with their own brand.

Those three were the pioneers of a formula that has not stopped being replicated in the midst of a growing globalization of the demand for higher education, which makes more and more students apply for a place in the best centers of the planet, even if they are in other continents or thousands of kilometers away from their homes. This is how the Best Global Universities of the North American medium US News & World Report, the Russian Round University Ranking, the CWTS of the University of Leiden (Holland), the one of the 100 most innovative Universities prepared by Reuters ...

AN EXPENSIVE SERVICE

But why this growing interest in putting universities around the world to compete? Obviously, that more and more this type of information is demanded, but also to a dimension that is not usually taken into account: many of these lists are made by private companies for which they represent an important business.

"The rankings make it easy for you to make diagnoses and see who the referents are, but many of the companies that make them are private companies and sell a service that is expensive," argues Juan Juliá, president of the Standing Committee of the Conference of University Rectors Spanish (CRUE).

And what exactly do they sell, who do they sell it to and how much do they sell it for? Their consultation and dissemination is free for students and for the media, but many people ignore that they are financed with resources from the universities themselves, which they charge for various concepts .

The most basic of them all is the sale of advertising spaces both on the websites where the rankings are hung and, in the case of THE, in the printed edition in which it is also collected. This is the only section marketed by those responsible for the ARWU. The advertising displays of its website are sold for prices ranging between 200 and 700 dollars (between 183 and 642 euros) for 20,000 impressions (online visualizations by the user).

That is also the business model, although in the printed variant, of the national ranking of universities that has been preparing this newspaper every year since 1999. Universities can buy presence and notoriety for their brand in a must-read document between university students and pre-university students , but it is not mandatory to appear in the ranking . "The ARWU is more rigid, more objective and there is no business behind it, beyond the commercialization of advertising spaces that anyone can buy and that allows them to finance their activity," says Domingo Docampo, former rector of the University of Vigo and one of the largest Spanish experts in the field of international university rankings.

ADVERTISING, DATA AND CONSULTING

Against this model, lists such as THE or QS have developed a sophisticated catalog of services to charge universities. For example, in addition to the online and offline advertising formats, the former offer them the possibility of having their own microsite or profile within their website timeshighereducation.com , spaces where the centers themselves highlight "their academic and research strengths, as well as their achievements Recent "in view of the 32.7 million annual visits of the web distributed" by more than 200 countries ". Or the organization of academic forums or the publication in that same portal of " native content marketing " (paid content of editorial appearance).

But from THE they also sell a "brand consulting" service to the rectors for which they help them build a positive academic reputation, gain visibility and compare with similar universities thanks to the huge amount of statistics produced by the ranking.

"THE is an extremely profitable and successful business, but we are much more than a ranking creator," argues Phil Baty, director of Knowledge (CKO) at THE, who emerged as a weekly specialist in 1971 and has now become "a global data business and business vision for the higher education and research sector. "

QS is also oriented towards this line of business, whose services and advertising proposals to companies are very similar to those of its main competitor. With one difference, the special emphasis he has placed on providing consulting services to universities where they help them "identify key areas of potential improvement" , in the words of Ben Sowter, senior vice president of QS.

And it is precisely this type of products, which also involves THE ("we offer these services from our Hong Kong office," Baty admits) that has aroused misgivings in Spanish universities, because they interpret that by offering them, those responsible for Major international rankings are acting both as judge and party, which they consider ethically objectionable.

To put it with a metaphor: would it be understood that the Michelin Guide charged restaurants around the world to advise them on how their bathrooms should be or how they should be located to get one of their reputed stars? And the truth is that QS, for example, also awards stars (QS Stars) to universities that buy their advice. Stars that can later look on their advertising and institutional documentation as if they were medals on the flap ...

"DELEZNABLE"

"It is reasonable that the same one that judges you sells you consulting services to improve positions in its ranking," says Docampo, who is in favor of using the statistical and reputational information provided by these companies, but denounces the perversions it is generating on campus all this reputation marketing. "Some rectors buy the improvement of positions in the rankings as a way of defending and highlighting the results of their management before the cloisters, but they do not realize that they are actually doing their university a disservice," he says.

The truth is that in the Rectorates there is a conviction that paying compensates, as Juliá recognizes with the caution and diplomacy of those who hold a vice-presidency in the CRUE: "There are those who say that they participate in the forums organized by these companies and learn about how they work helps improve your position in the rankings, " says the former rector of the Polytechnic University of Valencia.

However, both from THE and QS deny that there is a connection between which universities pay for any of their services and what positions they occupy in their respective ranks.

INDEPENDENT AUDIT

Is it not ethically objectionable to sell consulting services to the same universities to which they then judge and evaluate? "I do not think there is anything wrong while there are robust procedures to avoid any potential conflict of interest and ensure that universities are not worth simply paying to go up in the ranking," says Baty, who clarifies how the THE ranking can boast of being "the only one globally that submits all its data and calculations to a complete and independent audit" by PricewaterhouseCoopers , which independently replicates each ranking and signs it before publication.

"The elaboration of the rankings is and will always be independent of the commercial activity, not only for ethical reasons, but pragmatic," Sowter abounds. And he says emphatically: "We have built our reputation for almost 30 years of commitment and hard work, with integrity as a core value."

But that is not how it is being perceived on national campuses. "Just yesterday, seeing the rates that these companies charge for their services, I told the Vice Chancellor who deals with these issues that I think is unpresentable," argues the director of communication for an important Spanish university. "Sooner or later there should be a joint ruling on all university communication cabinets," he suggests.

RATES

And the truth is that it is enough to take a look at the commercial proposals to realize that they are not peccata minuta , precisely. This newspaper has had access to several budgets sent by THE Y QS to a Spanish public university. It reflects that THE would charge between 6,000 and 30,000 pounds (6,700-33,000 euros) for having its own portal within timeshighereducation.com . The price varies depending on the number of words of the microsite, the audiovisual resources used and the amount of advertising formats on and offline that are included in the agreement.

They also charge full statistical reports in which they analyze the performance of the institution based on a certain list of parameters and in comparison with universities that are considered similar. In this case, the price is fixed, of 15,000 euros per year, but the number of parameters and centers with which it is compared varies, as well as the duration of the contract. "I don't think it's bad to hire him, it's one of the few things you can do to compare yourself with other universities," says Domingo Docampo.

STARS

Another rooster sings with consulting services such as those sold by QS. The university mentioned above offered to pay $ 13,700 (€ 12,500) for an audit and $ 9,200 (€ 8,418) for each of the three years in which it could use the QS stars that were granted as a result of that audit .

However, on the total rate of $ 41,300 (37,787 euros) a 35% discount was promised until leaving it at $ 26,845 (24,541 euros) for the audit and three years of leave. "They are expensive for a country like ours, but there are universities like Stanford, with higher academic rates, where they see them affordable," said Juliá. And Docampo clarifies: "It's okay to commission a consulting report and it doesn't mean a lot of burden for a university's budget, but not for the uncle who makes the ranking . "

Legitimate or illegitimate, ethical or questionable, the truth is that the universe of international university rankings hides a juicy business, and this is a circumstance that neither its users nor administrations nor public opinion in general should forget before becoming arbitrators Absolutes of academic excellence .

According to the criteria of The Trust Project