by Giuseppe Novelli, Rector of the University of Tor Vergata
Every three months the waltz begins: private ranking agencies enjoy giving universities worldwide report cards, each one through different methods which cannot be compared, as well as different indicators which sometimes lack any logical criterion. This is what happened when the latest Qs rankings were published, basically showing all universities stepping backwards in just a few months! It is obvious that losing hundreds of positions in such a time frame is impossible in any rankings - even in sports - unless indicators vary. Well, without consulting anyone Qs decided to change indicators, using a method which is wrong both in principle and method.
Rankings credibility can be achieved exactly with indicators stable over time in order to enable Universities to change their strategic directions (which requires a few years). Changing standards in the meanwhile is not methodologically correct. If need be, rankings must be published beforehand and standards changed later on. It would be like excluding headed goals during the Football League! Most serious of all is the lack of comparability which destroys rankings credibility. International rankings shall put all countries on an equal footing. This did not happen with Qs rankings, in which values of scientific citations (e.g. in medicine) were ‘normalised’ with citations by the same University but in Humanities. Everyone knows that in Italy Humanities authors primarily publish in Italian and not English. This results in a totally unjustified advantage for British and American universities.
A serious evaluation should be able to take account of the following aspects: relevance of publications; originality/innovation of publications; internationalisation and/or potential for international competitiveness; with regard to patents, assessments must also contain references to transfer, technological development and socio-economic impact (even at a potential level). We hope that national and international ranking Agencies will take into account such aspects stopping once and for all this ‘game’ of meaningless and useless report cards.
