University rankings are now a global phenomenon. Having begun as a transparency and accountability instrument, they have morphed into an indicator of global competitiveness for knowledge and talent and have been transformed from an information tool into a complex global intelligence business. In our current data-driven age, the concepts of “monopolies of knowledge,” “information asymmetry,” and “surveillance capitalism” can help us better understand how the fusion of data and capitalism are influencing and shaping the future of higher education policy, practice, and research.

The concepts of “monopolies of knowledge” and “information asymmetry” describe conditions in which access to/control over information and power relations become intertwined, leading to circumstances whereby one group has more or better information than the other. Unequal knowledge fosters centralization of power. The theory of “surveillance capitalism” takes this scenario a step further, describing the new economic order in which the human experience is the “free raw material for hidden commercial practices of extraction, prediction and sales” and data is the “new frontier of power.”

What Does This Have to Do with Rankings?

Global rankings emerged as a phenomenon beginning in 2003 with the publication of Academic Rankings of World Universities (ARWU)—better known as the Shanghai Rankings. The importance of data for measurement and comparison was not new, stretching back to the late nineteenth century. In the twentieth century, there were increasing calls for enhanced accountability and public sector reform. UNESCO and OECD began compiling statistical information in the 1960s, followed by national rankings, such as U.S. News and World Report (USNWR) in the 1980s. However, the global rankings marked a significant departure.

For many people, rankings were seen as a transparency and accountability instrument to enhance student choice. Their key innovation was the simplicity of an international comparative framework. Rankings stand in sharp contrast with traditional academic approaches, such as quality assurance, which are guided by norms of peer review. By holding a mirror up to universities and nations, rankings succeeded in challenging long-standing assumptions or self-assertions about quality, status, and reputation in a simple yet dramatic fashion.

Global rankings quickly acquired a powerful dimension—benchmarking research became a tool promoting “world-classness.” In recognition that knowledge and talent are the essential currencies of the global era, universities and research were transformed from national institutions to instruments of geopolitics and geoeconomics. Rankings portray a global chess game with different institutions and countries jockeying for positions.

However, rankings are more than a report card. Rankings have expanded their geographical range, consolidating their position as purveyors of all information and analysis about universities and research. Rankings are now the basis of a complex global intelligence business. The main global rankings—ARWU, Times Higher Education, QS, and USNWR—are each part of for-profit corporations providing a range of services. THE’s empire is growing, having recently acquired Education World Forum.

Rankings are also a profit center—a mechanism for data collection and warehousing, and the basis for sophisticated analytic tools and associated consultancy services. This is where the real money and power lies. As one ranker mentioned privately to me, “As you know that rankings themselves cannot make money, one has to find funding or make money to support ranking activities; it’s not an easy task.”

This has propelled corporate integration, consolidation, and concentration across rankings, publishing, and big data, creating a substantial end-to-end knowledge intelligence gathering, warehousing, and analytics business. Getting ahead and being visible is critical in a competitive geopolitical world. Without the data, it is not possible for governments or institutions to govern, steer, develop, and monitor their systems/institutions or achieve their objectives. They become easy prey, providing vast amounts of data to play the rankings game, and then seeking consultancy to stay ahead, with implications for national sovereignty and institutional autonomy.

There is a familiar “grooming” pattern, beginning with creating a targeted ranking for a region, say Africa, Central Asia, or the Middle East. This excites and worries universities and governments, as illustrated by this UWN article. A conference is then organized, in which the university/government pays all the costs, followed by consultancy, e.g., as announced in this “news item” in Times Higher Education.

How Can Research Help Us Understand These Dynamics Better while Also Helping Governments and Institutions Craft Better Responses to Challenges?

Over the last 20 years, we have analyzed rankings as an endogenous model, looking at their methodologies, indicators, and impact on higher education. But much has changed. Rankings are part of a wider transformation impacting higher education. Concepts such as “monopolies of knowledge,” “information asymmetry,” and “surveillance capitalism” could be very helpful for understanding the role that rankings and similar tools play, alongside the ethical, proprietary, and governance challenges they present, in a technology- and data-driven world. We need to ask: How is the fusion of data and capitalism influencing/shaping higher education and research? What more can we learn about the rankings business model? To what extent do rankings encourage policies and practices that undermine universal higher education? And at a time of declining public trust, to what extent has higher education’s own sluggish response to genuine demands for greater accountability and transparency about its value and contribution to individuals/society opened the door to rankings and the privatization of public data?

Ellen Hazelkorn is joint managing partner at BH Associates education consultants and professor emerita at the Technological University Dublin, Ireland. E-mail: [email protected].