NJCIE 2017, Vol. 1(2), 29–46

World-Class or World-Ranked Universities? Performativity and Nobel Laureates in Peace and Literature

Brian D. Denman^[1]

Senior Lecturer, University of New England, Australia

Peer-reviewed article; received 12 January 2018; accepted 24 February 2018

Abstract

It is erroneous to draw too many conclusions about global university rankings. Making a university’s reputation rest on the subjective judgement of senior academics and over-reliance on interpreting and utilising secondary data from bibliometrics and peer assessments have created an enmeshed culture of performativity and over-emphasis on productivity. This trend has exacerbated unhealthy competition and mistrust within the academic community and also discord outside its walls. Surely if universities are to provide service and thrive with the advancement of knowledge as a primary objective, it is important to address the methods, concepts, and representation necessary to move from an emphasis on quality assurance to an emphasis on quality enhancement.

This overview offers an analysis of the practice of international ranking. US News and World Report Best Global Universities Rankings, the Times Supplement World University Rankings, and the Shanghai Jiao Tong University Academic Ranking of World Universities are analysed. While the presence of Nobel laureates in the hard sciences has been seized upon for a number of years as quantifiable evidence of producing world-class university education, Nobel laureates in peace and literature have been absent from such rankings. Moreover, rankings have been based on employment rather than university affiliation. Previously unused secondary data from institutions where Nobel peace and literature laureates completed their terminal degrees are presented. The purpose has been to determine whether including peace and literature laureates might modify rankings. A caveat: since the presence of awarded Nobel laureates affiliated at various institutions results in the institutions receiving additional ranking credit in the hard sciences of physics, chemistry, medicine, and economic sciences, this additional credit is not recognised in the approach used in this study. Among other things, this study suggests that if educational history were used in assembling the rankings as opposed to one’s university affiliation, conclusions might be very different.

Keywords: Global University Rankings; Research Quantums; Quality Higher Education

Reformative reflections on education: an introduction

In the spirit of Schriewer’s transnational intellectual networks, knowledge has often become characterised and shaped by reformative reflections on education over time (Schriewer, 2004). Friedman contends that societal knowledge has been shaped by outward and inward culture. Regarding the former, he states, “…the more you have a culture that naturally glocalizes, the more your culture easily absorbs foreign ideas and global best practices and melds those with its own traditions” (Friedman, 2007, p. 422).

Like outward-seeking educational reforms, universities are prime examples of how outward or inward nation-states shape and define educational policy. Global university rankings are examples of ways that help to promote outward-seeking institutions. International agencies such as university league tables, UNESCO’s Global Monitoring Reports (see UNESCO Global Education Monitoring Report, n.d.), and other international data sources—including bibliometrics (e.g. h-index, Scopus and peer-to-peer impact factors) have increasingly become viewed as policy-oriented, multilateral and/or national educational reform initiatives. These are pursued to promote, negate, or change the direction of knowledge advancement simply by the interpretation of evaluators, typically from the nation-state, institution or accrediting organisation or authority. Notwithstanding the need to ensure that data used in these instruments contain pieces of truth, the data collected and methodology employed may often be subjective, biased, anecdotal, and inexact. The research requires what Bleiklie (2014, p. 383) argues is a question of conceptual clarity. Not only can the choice of research methodology be questioned, but also how data were collected, the approach and timing, the number of cases under study, and how data are interpreted. With regard to the latter, Moodie (2017) cautions that metrics are tools for transferring evaluation and monitoring from experts, who are usually the people conducting the activity, to people and bodies who are distant in location and seniority, often senior management located centrally.

Van Raan (2005) also points out that metrics have been insufficiently developed to be utilised in working with large-scale data for comparative studies, charging that quick and dirty analyses have largely been misused and abused for purposes of just in time decision-making when better and more advanced indicators could have been developed and made available.

Comparing universities as a whole can also be quite problematic as well. Benneworth and Sanderson (2009) argue that universities that serve regional, rural and remote communities are at a disadvantage as far as rankings are concerned, as demand for their services is often limited and this circumstance leads to the suggestion that they have low or little impact and are always in catch-up mode to amass demands for knowledge. Their marginalised position propels notions of inferiority that puts the question as to whether universities should be ranked in concert with their location and constituencies. In a positive step, the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education (2015) has classified six types of institutions in an attempt to differentiate between types of institutions:

Table 1: Modified version of the Carnegie Classification of universities and other higher education institutions

Source: Carnegie Classifications of Institutions of Higher Education, 2015, http://carnegieclassifications.iu.edu/downloads/CCIHE2015-FlowCharts-01Feb16.pdf

Beyond location and constituent differences, gaps in fiscal resources and endowments in long-established universities in the West have left many institutions at a disadvantage, which has led to increased: 1) competitive pressures of the global marketplace; and 2) institutional pressures emanating from performance-based measures generated from funding bodies (e.g. World Bank, IMF, OECD, government) (see Marginson, Kaur, & Sawir 2011).

Since the turn of the 21^st Century, data analysis from rankings, metrics, and performance-based measures in the field of education has resulted in what many term as New Public Management which, in turn, has led to a wave of increased accountability based on evidence-based quality assurance and quality control measures, often at the expense of process. Birnbaum, like many, viewed these as “…self-correcting mechanisms that monitor organizational functions and provide attention cues, or negative feedback, to participants when things are not going well” (Birnbaum 1989, p. 49). This, in a further development, has led to questions of whether universities serve the public or the public good. Marginson and Considine differentiated universities by defining those that might be classified as enterprise, entrepreneurial, and corporate universities, concluding that the enterprise university encapsulated a balanced mix of economic and academic dimensions that maintained research survivability, but in an environment of increased competition and performativity (Marginson and Considine, 2000, p. 5). In this discussion, the question is raised as to what happens in the assessment and evaluation processes when there may be policies, which fail to comply with expectations across cultures and nation-states? How are standardised instruments used when quality education is varied due to student ability and capability? Can processes be improved to avoid data being misused or abused? Finally, who ultimately determines authority in establishing what quality constitutes, and how is quality enhanced with such measures over time? Generally speaking, when any of these issues are raised, there is often outcry about data collection and the quality of the methodologies employed, but with scant mention given to the depth of analysis and nature of assessment. The field of education may be considered a non-exact science, but its standards in research need not be compromised. While quantitative research methodology in education may help to explain and predict phenomena to establish, confirm, or validate relationships and to develop generalisations that may contribute to theory, much of the research employed in interpolating global data sets is still largely qualitative. The work is not only exploratory in nature but it builds on reformative reflections that build theory from the ground up. Moran and Kendall (2009) contend that different methodologies produce illusions of education due to how education is typically viewed as a field of study. While Baudrillard (1994) identifies education as a number of simulations—in other words not reality—the act and pursuit of educational research identifies its weakness in its interdisciplinarity, and “…[that] this will come to mean that critiques of what might be seen as current inadequate practices and policy are only, in a sense, illusionary critiques” (Moran & Kendall, 2009, p. 328).

This analysis does not necessarily address what methodologies are employed to describe international comparisons in educational data. Instead, it is intended to shed light on the validity of the research, meaning the accuracy, meaningfulness, and credibility of the research as a whole. This has major implications for global organisations, which rest institutional reputations on not only the credibility of the data collected but also warranting that the data analysed are pieces of truth when viewed as a contribution to overall knowledge advancement. Moreover, when viewing the data as an aggregate whole, this approach can assist in making generalisations about the world beyond specific situations, interventions, and contexts.

Overseas expansion and globalisation of higher education

The globalisation of higher education has become increasingly valued, particularly in terms of overseas recognition of world-class universities, international rankings, and competition among university researchers. The Information Age has not only transformed the way we communicate and collect information, it has also led to some unforeseen consequences: the standardisation of curricula (Bologna Process, 2018); increased levels of accreditation and accountability; and a general shift towards a utilitarianism within professional, applied degrees, much to the chagrin of those who endorse Newman’s idea of a university (Rothblatt, 2006, p. 52). Regarding the latter, Newman’s idea of a university was to simply disseminate universal knowledge for the purpose of teaching all who were ready and able. It was intended for preparing the well-rounded individual rather than reinforcing the advancement of the nation-state. Peripatetic, itinerant, and wandering scholars too are increasingly more mobile—both literally and virtually—but are becoming more inclined to seek educational opportunities for economic gain rather than intellectual well-roundedness. This is becoming increasingly apparent in times of economic uncertainty as evidenced in the Global Financial Crisis of 2008–2011. Moreover, students have opted for professional specialised degree pursuits because of their obvious need to seek gainful employment upon successful completion of the degree.

All the above has resulted in a general shift from viewing higher education as something of social value to something that is more of an investment. This may be due in part to the theory of human capital, formulated by Theodore W. Schultz in 1960 (Alladin, 1992). Human Capital Theory helped to justify the expansion of higher education by postulating that the more education a population receives, the greater the benefits in the economy. While individual investment in education is clearly on the increase—particularly in the case of enrolment in private universities—there is a general perception that higher education serves the public good. This, unfortunately, is beginning to wane. The commodification and advancement of knowledge comes at a cost, and while research continues to be an imperative in the modern university, those institutions identified as poorly resourced cannot continue to meet rising demand. Notwithstanding the content of the Carnegie Classification of universities, there continues to be no universal form or definition of what constitutes a university, yet world-rankings of universities continue to shape and manipulate what is perceived as quality and excellence. As Hazelkorn rightly emphasizes,

Rankings are a manifestation of what has become known as the worldwide ‘battle for excellence’, and are perceived and used to determine the status of individual institutions, assess the quality and performance of the higher education system, and gauge global competitiveness. (Hazelkorn, 2015, p. 1)

Rankings differ from accreditation, the latter of which has been viewed historically as an award of merit vested by the Pope or, at times, the Emperor in granting licence (Studium Generale) to teach at a university (Neave, 1997). While accreditation agencies have proliferated since the late 1990s at international, national and disciplinary levels, carriage is given to highly prescribed and standardised criteria to audit education—in all its various forms—by peer panels of experts who specialise in various disciplines and who are aware of and sensitive to the educational contexts relative to the audited institution in question. The recent wave of mergers and change of status for several university colleges to universities in the Nordic region helps to highlight the increased importance of these agencies and peer panels. Rankings, on the other hand, have galvanised the commodification of knowledge. As a result, there is a cost associated with knowledge advancement, and while research continues to be an imperative in the 21st Century university, those institutions identified as poorly resourced cannot continue to meet rising demand for research excellence. According to Marginson and van der Wende,

This [ranking] process has been encouraged in many nations by policies of corporatisation and partial devolution based on governance by steering from a distance and more plural income raising, a model of provision that reflects informal cross-border norms influenced by practices in the English-speaking nations and the policy templates of the World Bank. (Marginson & van der Wende, 2007, p. 308)

This reputational race to the top in the league with the impetus to improve greater public accountability and transparency, has led to an unfair advantage given to resource-rich institutions—predominantly Anglo-centred—and those that excel in the hard sciences.

Table 2: Listing of university league tables, country of origin, and methodologies used

Name of organisation	Academic Ranking of World Universities	THE World University Rankings	QS World University Rankings	US News and World Report Best Colleges Rankings	Performance Ranking of Scientific Papers for World Universities	Ranking Web of World Universities	CHE-Excellence Ranking
Company or institution & country	Shanghai Jing Tiao University (China)	Times Higher Education (UK)	Quacquarelli Symonds (UK)	U.S. News and World Report (USA)	Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan (Taiwan)	Cybermetrics Lab (CCHS) (Spain)	Center for Higher Education (Germany)
Methods	Highly cited researchers (20%)	Teaching (30%)	Academic reputation (40%)	Graduation and retention rates (22.5%)	Research excellence (40%)	Presence rank	Number of publications in the web of science
	Papers in Nature and Science (20%)	Research reputation & income (30%)	Student-to-faculty ratio (20%)	Undergraduate academic reputation (22.5)	Research impact (35%)	Impact rank	Citations (normalised to the international standard)
	Papers indexed (20%)	Research ciations (30%)	Research citations per faculty member (20%)	Faculty resources (20%)	Research productivity (25%)	Openness rank	Outstanding researchers
	Alumni (10%)	International outlook (7.5%)	Employer reputation (10%)	Student selectivity (12.5%)		Excellence rank	Number of projects in the Marie Curie Programme
	Per capita performance (10%)	Industry income (2.5%)	Proportion of international faculty (5%)	Financial resources (10%)
				Graduate rate performance (7.5%)
				Alumni giving rate (5%)

Multiple Sources: Academic Ranking of World Universities; World University Ranking Methodologies Compared; Ranking Web of Universities; US News & World Report Education.

As a result of the increase in compliance policies and regulatory standards imposed on universities and their institutional partnerships, performance-based measures have been pursued at nation-state levels which, in turn, has led to unforeseen consequences such as the following: 1) increased pressure to publish in Anglophone journals and/or those journals that have been ranked nationally or by discipline; 2) evidence of research impact (measured mostly by bibliometrics) as opposed to formative assessments on impact (societal, community and/or individual), since the latter is often considered too subjective; and 3) micro-managerialism of academic performance, collegial competition for increased specialisation and, in isolated cases, collegial sabotage.

Methodologies currently employed by university world ranking organisations also suggest that world rankings are here to stay. The obsession on the part of universities to be identified as world-class do not, however, reflect world rankings. Variables and percentages used in rankings change over time, methods are contested, and the exercises used to evidence quality often help to undermine the very essence of what a university is and how it sets itself apart from others. World rankings prompt universities to focus on similarities based on a narrow listing of measureable variables. World-class universities, on the other hand, may be preconceived as elitist in certain parts of the world, but are increasingly viewed as world-class due to their emphasis on differentiation and carving out their own path.

Confidence crisis in academia

Husén (1991) identifies the modern university as an entity working towards many different goals while at the same time training professionals. Apart from expectations to improve educational access, promote equality, and offer quality instruction, “…it is expected to contribute to the extension of the frontiers of knowledge by high-quality research” (Husén, 1991, p. 184). While academic staff generally tend to give their loyalty to their discipline more than to their employer (the university), if a student demand system dictates what degrees are kept or discarded, this creates angst in maintaining a strategic presence in one’s discipline or field of study whether research-active or not. A further complication derives from an increasing obsession with evidence-based performance measures—necessary prerogatives and interventions in higher education at present. Gaps between administrative and academic staff are growing and with increased significance. The organisational culture of the university appears to be increasingly affected by entities which use performance reporting as a management strategy for punitive measures and entities which promote and encourage academic excellence and quality. Notwithstanding a need to bridge these fissures as it should be understood that the ultimate goal is to achieve similar like-minded outcomes, the divide appears most notable in the pursuit of knowledge and its advancement for the academic while parenthetically, the administrator is mobilizing in a quest for greater efficiencies and effectiveness in doing more for less and keeping an eye on the bottomline.

An ageing workforce and inadequate succession planning further exacerbates this angst, particularly when universities are asked to slash budgets and casualise staff appointments. The National Center for Professional and Research Ethics (NCPRE) recently developed a new academic unit diagnostic tool (AuDiT) that indexes three levels of academic departmental culture: vibrant, warning, and challenged (see NCPRE, 2018). This tool helps measure how the degree of health in a given academic department, by seeking to judge vibrant, warning, and challenged departmental characteristics and/or nuances. The index suggests that the greater the level of dysfunctional management, the greater the anxiety experienced by staff.

Table 3: NCPRE’s Academic Unit Diagnostic Tool (AUDiT)

UNE SOE:Users:u1:Desktop:AUDiT.png

Source: National Center for Professional & Research Ethics, https://ethicscenter.csl.illinois.edu/academic-leadership/ccc/audit/

This anxiety is transferred to the prospective undergraduate student, who may not necessarily know at the time of university matriculation how to choose an appropriate degree or major. Policies and structures developed to assess the alignment between education and employment are still in the development stage (e.g. OECD Higher Education Programme, 2018). Balancing life and work continue to be a struggle, and standards run the risk of faltering when divisive forces cannot find a common goal of education’s ultimate purpose. As Alladin observes, “[t]he university has become a place where a student is trained for an occupation rather than given a broad education in traditional fields” (Alladin, 1992, p. 6).

Given increased regulation, standardisation, and quality control measures intended to improve accountability, metrics and benchmarking are increasingly tied to funding and hence, becoming an evidence-based necessity. The hope is that any form of analytics focuses upon a culture of academic excellence and quality, and that the quality of evidence is tightly monitored and justified; otherwise, it becomes cost-ineffective and dysfunctional. As economic imperatives also become increasingly the norm, the alignment between education and employment will continue to drive transformational change to the traditional disciplines, forcing universities to consider developing qualifications that are highly specialized and/or cross-disciplinary or custom-tailored to meet the individual needs of the consumer, the student.

Husén (1991, p. 184) rightly suggests that academic competence must be forced to yield to the power of numbers. The advent of the Information Age has shifted the focus away from Newman’s idea (see Rothblatt 2006) to a more utilitarian approach. An understanding of the university as an entity and its possible future can also be attained by the use of demographics. As an example, demographic data, compiled from secondary sources, allow researchers to analyse, interpolate, and replicate from different perspectives (Smith, 2010). This helps broaden opportunities for discovery through comparative analysis and leads to an increasing need to understand situational, country contexts. While caution should be exercised when interpolating results from secondary sources such as the UNESCO Global Monitoring Reports, the data utilised can help verify estimations and make predictions for the foreseeable future. This includes world rankings, as variables change over time as does institutional leadership and context.

The risks and benefits of international education comparisons

Currently, international education comparisons tend to promote the globalisation of education in terms of increased economic trade and human capital. It is predicted that in order for comparative education research to be more useful and practicable for nation-states and institutions alike in the future, there will be an increasing need for students to possess the aptitude and inclination in understanding, interpreting, and analyzing statistical data from large-scale data sources. The higher the quality, the greater the sense of purpose and ownership of knowledge acquisition and advancement. Moreover, it is hoped that a spillover effect may offer greater benefits that might redefine the current system of performativity and productivity. The risks, if further exacerbation continues, is a lack of depth, rigour and robustness in research, which can lead to ambiguities in exceptions to the rule, a general lack of environmental contexts at institutional or local levels, simplistic prescriptions for change, or normative prescriptions of policy and practice.

In the following research to demonstrate how one variable can change the whole dynamic in world university rankings, the utility of using secondary data from the Nobel Peace Institute (Norway) and the Nobel Prize Organisation (Sweden) helps to show how different rankings can be affected. The purpose of this research honours the contribution of the non-exacting science of education in its various forms. While peace and literature are not necessarily directly aligned with the field of education, the understanding of education’s ultimate purpose of well-roundedness is considered as offering a contribution to the advancement of knowledge. Generally seen as being the most reliable and used, the Shanghai Jing Tiao rankings award the highest points to institutions which have or have had Nobel laureates in the hard sciences—10% within their respective rankings. However, peace and literature are not listed in the current calculations due to the fact that they are not in the hard sciences. This may be purposeful in the sense that peace and literature are, by nature, subjective fields of study. This research has been undertaken to consider adding Nobel laureates in peace and literature to highlight those institutions that have produced and/or acknowledged the contributions of these notable individuals. This undertaking suggests that a further ranking of universities worldwide might yield a new ranking of institutions that, among other things, value and recognize the contributions of education—a non-exacting science—a field of study that helps to expand and broaden knowledge and its advancement.

Table 4: List of Nobel laureates (literature; peace) according to country and institution where highest degree was obtained

Country	Universities	Nobel laureates (literature)	Nobel laureates (peace)
Algeria	University of Algiers	Albert Camus
Argentina	University of Buenos Aires National University of La Plata		Carlos Saavedra Lamas Adolfo Perez Esquivel
Australia	(University of Cambridge)	Patrick White
Austria	University of Vienna (2) University of Graz (Jagiellonian University)	Elfriede Jelinek	Alfred Hermann Fried
Bangladesh	Chttagong College		Muhammad Yunus
Belarus	Belarusian State University	Svetlana Alexievich
Belgium	Ghent University (Dominican University) Universite libre de Bruxelles University of Louvain	Maurice Maeterlinck	Georges Pire Henri La Fontaine Auguste Marie Francois Beernaert
Bosnia & Herzegovina (Yugoslavia)	(University of Graz)	Ivo Andrić
Bulgaria	(University of Vienna)	Elias Canetti
Canada	University of Western Ontario (St. John’s College, Oxford)	Alice Munro	Lester Bowles Pearson
Chile	University of Chile	Pablo Neruda Gabriela Mistral
China	Beijing Normal University (2) Beijing Foreign Studies University Lhasa’s Jokhang Temple	Mo Yan Gao Xingjian	Liu Xiaobo Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso)
Colombia	(Harvard University)	Gabriel Carcia Marquez	Juan Manuel Santos
Czech Republic (Czechoslovakia)		Jaroslav Seifert	Baroness Bertha Sophie Felicita von Suttner, nee Countess Kinsky von Chinic und Tettau
Denmark	University of Copenhagen Technical University of Denmark	Karl Adolph Gjellerup & Henrik Pontoppidan Johannes Vilhelm Jensen	Fredrik Bajer
Egypt	Cairo University (2) (New York University School of Law) Alexandria University	Naguib Mahfouz	Mohamed El Baradei Yasser Arafat Mohamed Anwar Sadat
Finland	University of Helsinki University of Oulu	Frans Eemil Sillanpää	Martti Ahtisaari
France	Ecole Nationales des Chartes University of Paris (8) College Stanislas de Paris Ecole Normale Superieure (2) University of Aix-en-Provence Lycée Bonaparte Lycée Henri-IV (2) Aix-Marseille University University of Strasbourg Lycée Louis-le-Grand (2) University of Bordeaux (2) (University of Oxford) (University of Bristol)	Patrick Modiano J.M.G. Le Clézio Claude Simon John-Paul Sartre Saint-John Perse François Mauriac André Gide Roger Martin du Gard Henri Bergson Anatole France Romain Rolland Frédéric Mistral Sully Prudhomme	René Cassin Albert Schweitzer Léon Jouhaux Ferdinand Buisson Aristide Briand Léon Victor Auguste Bourgeois Paul Henri Benjamin Balluet d’Estournelles de Constant, Baron de Constant de Rebecque Louis Renault Frederic Passy
Germany	(West University of Timisoara) Berlin University of the Arts University of Cologne University of Munich University of Bonn (2) University of Jena University of Göttingen (2) University of Kiel (Harvard University) (University of Oslo) University of Oldenburg University of Leipzig University of Marburg Heidelberg University Evangelical Seminaries of Maulbronn and Balubeuren	Herta Müller Günter Grass Heinrich Böll Nelly Sachs Thomas Mann Gerhart Hauptmann Paul von Heyse Rudolf Cristoph Eucken Theodor Mommsen	Henry A. Kissinger Willy Brandt Carl von Ossietzky Ludwig Quidde Gustav Stresemann
Ghana	(Massachusetts Institute of Technology)		Kofi Annan
Greece	(University of Paris (2))	Odysseas Elytis Giorgos Seferis
Guatemala	Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala	Miguel Angel Asturias	Rigoberta Menchú Tum
Hungary		Imre Kertész
Iceland		Halldór Laxness
India	University of Calcutta Samrat Ashok Technological Institute (United Services College)	Rabindranath Tagore Rudyard Kipling	Kailash Satyarthi
Iran	University of Tehran		Shirin Ebadi
Ireland	National College of Art and Design St. Patrick’s College, Maynooth (Queen’s University of Belfast)(2) Irish School of Ecumenics University College Dublin Loreto Abbey, Rathfarnham, Ireland Trinity College, Dublin	Seamus Heaney Samuel Beckett George Bernard Shaw William Butler Yeats	John Hume David Trimble Betty Williams Mairead Corrigan Seán MacBride
Israel	(Staff College, Camberley)	Shmuel Yosef Agnon	Yitzhak Rabin
Italy	Dominican University (University of Bonn) Brera Academy Polytechnic University of Milan Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa	Giosuè Carducci Grazia Deledda Luigi Pirandello Salvatore Quasimodo Eugenio Montale Dario Fo	Ernesto Teodoro Moneta
Jamaica	University of the West Indies
Japan	(University of East Anglia) University of Tokyo (3)	Kazuo Ishiguro Kenzaburō Ōe Yasunari Kawabata	Eisaku Satō
Kenya	University of Nairobi		Wangari Muta Maathai
Liberia	(Harvard University) (Eastern Mennonite University)		Ellen Johnson Sirleaf Leymah Gbowee
Lithuania	Vilnius University	Czesław Miłosz	Bernard Lown
Macedonia	(Loreto Abbey, Rathfarnham, Ireland)		Mother Teresa (Saint Teresa of Calcutta)
Mexico	(University of California Berkeley) (Academy of International Law, Netherlands)	Octavio Paz Lozano	Alfonso Garcia Robles
Myanmar (Burma)	(University of London)		Aung San Suu Kyi
Netherlands	Academy of International Law, Netherlands Hague Academy of International Law University of Leiden		Tobias Asser
Nigeria	University of Ibadan	Wole Soyinka
Norway	University of Oslo (3)	Sigrid Undset Knut Hamsun Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson	Fridtjof Nansen Christian Lous Lange
Pakistan			Malala Yousafzai
Peru	(Complutense University of Madrid)	Mario Vargas Llosa
Poland	Jagiellonian University Warsaw University (3) Warsaw Rabbinical Seminary (New School for Social Research, New York)	Wisława Szymborska Isaac Bashevis Singer Władysław Reymont Henryk Sienkiewicz	Joseph Rotblat Lech Wałęsa Shimon Peres Menachem Begin
Portugal	Pontifical Salesian University, Portugal	José de Sousa Saramago
Romania	(University of Paris)		Elie Wiesel
Russia (Soviet Union)	Rostov State University (University of Marburg) Moscow State University (2) P.N. Lebedev Physics Institute of the Soviet Academy of Sciences (FIAN)	Joseph Brodsky Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Mikhail Sholokhov Boris Pasternak Ivan Bunin	Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov
Saint Lucia	(University of the West Indies)	Derek Walcott
South Africa	University of the Witwatersrand (Kings College London) Adams College, South Africa University of South Africa Potchefstroom University for Christian Higher Education (University of Texas, Austin)	J.M. Coetzee Nadine Gordimer	F.W. de Klerk Nelson Mandela Desmond Mpilo Tutu
South Korea	Kyung Hee University		Kim Dae-jung
Spain	Complutense University of Madrid (2) University of Madrid University of Salamanca	Camilo José Cela Vicente Aleixandre Juan Ramón Jiménez Jacinto Benavente José Echegaray
Sweden	University of Stockholm (2) Uppsala University (6)	Tomas Tranströmer Harry Martinson Eyvind Johnson Pär Lagerkvist Erik Axel Karlfeldt Carl Gustaf Verner von Heidenstam Selma Lagerlof	Alva Myrdal Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjold Lars Olof Jonathan (Nathan) Söderblom Hjalmar Branting Klaus Pontus Arnoldson
Switzerland	(Heidelberg University) (Evangelical Seminaries of Maulbronn and Balubeuren) University of Zurich	Hermann Hesse Carl Spitteler	Élle Ducommun Charles Albert Gobat Jean Henry Dunant
Timor-Leste	(Pontifical Salesian University) (Hague Academy of International Law)		Carlos Filipe Ximenes Belo Jose Ramos-Horta
Trinidad & Tobago	(University of Oxford)	V.S. Naipaul
Turkey	Istanbul University	Orhan Pamuk
United Kingdom	Staff College, Camberley University of Cambridge (4) Kings College London Royal Academy of Dramatic Art University of Oxford (3) Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (Harvard University) University University of Glasgow	Doris Lessing Harold Pinter William Golding Sir Winston Churchill Bertrand Russell T.S. Eliot John Galsworthy	Philip J. Noel-Baker Lord (John) Boyd Orr of Brechin Cecil of Chelwood, Viscount (Lord Edgar Algernon Robert Gascoyne Cecil) Arthur Henderson Sir Norman Angell (Ralph Lane) Sir Austen Chamberlain William Randall Cremer
USA	University of Minnesota (2) Howard University Northwestern University Stanford University University of Mississippi Yale University (2) Harvard University (8) New School for Social Research, New York Massachusetts Institute of Technology University of California Berkeley Vanderbilt University Georgia Southwestern College Johns Hopkins University (2) Boston University California Institute of Technology Virginia Military Institute Bryn Mayr College Cornell University Rockford University Columbia University Marietta College New York University Cumberland University	Bob Dylan Toni Morrison Joseph Brodsky Saul Bellow John Steinbeck Ernest Hemingway William Faulkner Pearl S. Buck Eugene O’Neill Sinclair Lewis	Barack H. Obama Albert Arnold (Al) Gore Jimmy Carter Jody Williams Norman E. Borglaug Martin Luther King Jr. Linus Carl Pauling George Catlett Marshall Ralph Bunche Emily Greene Balch John Raleigh Mott Cordell Hull Jane Addams Nicholas Murray Butler Frank Billings Kellogg Charles Gates Dawes Thomas Woodrow Wilson Elihu Root Theodore Roosevelt
Vietnam			Lê Đúc Tho
Yemen	Sana’a University		Tawakkol Karman
Zimbabwe	(Adams College, South Africa)		Albert John Lutuli

NB: Institutions listed in parenthesis are institutions located outside of the Nobel laureate’s home of origin.

Notes:

- 36 Nobel laureates studied in a country other than their home country (anomaly: University of West Indies)

- 5 were activists

- 9 who were born in one country but acknowledged for their contributions in another (Israel/Palestine/Germany/Bulgaria/Romania/Macedonia/Yugoslavia/Poland/Ukraine/Belarus)

- 44 had no formal education; 1 has yet to finish her formal education abroad

- 12 were imprisoned, assassinated, exiled, expelled (strongly advised to emigrate), persecuted, or determined to leave their country of origin

- 1 declined the award (peace); 1 declined the award (literature)

- Burma, Colombia, Chile, Hungary, Iceland, Israel, Liberia, Macedonia, Mexico, Pakistan, Peru, Saint Lucia, Timor-Leste, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, and Zimbabwe are the only countries that hold a Nobel laureate (peace/literature), but with no institutional affiliation

Table 5: University rankings based on Nobel laureates (peace; literature)

Rank	Institution
1	Harvard University (USA)
2	University of Paris (France)
3(tied)	Oxford University (UK) Uppsala University (Sweden)
4	Cambridge University (UK)
5(tied)	University of Vienna (Austria) Complutense University of Madrid (Spain) University of Oslo (Norway) University of Tokyo (Japan) Warsaw University (Poland)
6(tied)	Beijing Normal University (China) Cairo University (Egypt) Ecole Normale Superieure (France) Lycée Louis-le-Grand (France) Lycée Henri-IV (France) University of Bordeaux (France) University of Bonn (Germany) University of Göttingen (Germany) Moscow State University (Russia) Adams College (South Africa) University of Stockholm (Sweden) Queen’s University of Belfast (UK) Johns Hopkins University (USA) University of Minnesota (USA) Yale University (USA)

Table 6: University rankings according to international league tables (2017)

Rank	Shanghai Jing Tiao	THE	QS	US News & World
1	Harvard University	University of Oxford	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	Princeton University
2	Stanford University	California Institute of Technology	Stanford University	Harvard University
3	University of Cambridge	Stanford University	Harvard University	University of Chicago; Yale University
4	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	University of Cambridge	University of Cambridge	Columbia University; Stanford University
5	University of California Berkeley	Massachusetts Institute of Technology	California Institute of Technology	Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Sources: Academic Ranking of World Universities, http://www.shanghairanking.com; World University Rankings 2016-2017, https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/2017/world-ranking#!/page/0/length/25/sort_by/rank/sort_order/asc/cols/stats; QS World University Rankings, https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2016; U.S. News & World Report Releases 2017 Best Colleges Rankings, https://www.usnews.com/info/blogs/press-room/articles/2016-09-13/us-news-releases-2017-best-colleges-rankings

Material observations

World-class and world-ranked universities differ as the former place emphasis upon difference and the latter upon comparable similarity. The only shared dimensions of both are the challenges to financial, and administrative capacity given the increasing social demands for higher education (Martin et al. 2007). Variables such as institutional and research reputation are highly subjective and limited to the exposure of differing educational systems. Ranking universities as a whole also undermine the qualities of institutes, schools, and departments that otherwise might attract notice and be valued. Productivity statistics and international involvement vary considerably from year to year and, while such variables are useful to determine social and individual rates of return, the shelf-life of the data are short-lived and difficult to utilise to make comparisons year-to-year.

When comparing various methodologies for world-rankings of universities, it is clear that their task is fraught with ambiguities. In other words, ranking is not an exacting science. By concentrating on one variable used in the Shanghai Jiao Tong (ARWU) ranking relating to highly cited researchers and alumni, it was found that Nobel peace and literature laureates were not counted as opposed to those in the hard sciences. This may be because both peace and literature are considered soft sciences and thus, the perceived value in their individual and social rate of return is equivocal and open to contestation.

Given the notion that world-class universities emphasize institutional difference, the addition of Nobel peace and literature laureates to league tables would change current league table configurations of institutional ranks. By developing a specialised listing of institutions on the basis of the presence of Nobel laureates in peace and literature reveals a hallmark of difference and, moreover, captures the essence of what universities are striving for: namely, the desire to be recognised as world-class as opposed to simply being world-ranked.

The process of collecting data on Nobel laureates in literature and peace produced some additional findings. Many Nobel laureates were listed in more than one country, even when individuals fled, left, or were persecuted in their country of origin. Among the top five institutions listed in Table 5, 14 Nobel laureates completed their studies in a second country, suggesting that mobility is not only rife but that one’s identity may not necessarily be associated with where one is born. While knowledge may not necessarily be the province of any one nation-state, the marketability of world-class scholars such as Nobel laureates propels nation-states and institutions to recognise high achievement.

The university rankings based on Nobel laureates (Table 5) in comparison to university rankings based on league tables (Table 6) reflect a sharp contrast and set of distinctions. Notwithstanding the noticeable difference in rankings of universities from other nation-states, many of these institutions offer mediums of instruction other than English. By changing one variable, Nobel laureates (literature and peace), which have been omitted in league tables for whatever reason, there is scope to consider specialist rankings as standalone, as they help offset those institutions that appear to meet international benchmarks that are becoming increasingly standardised. In addition, they may help to promote institutions that are unique, different, or set apart from others.

References

Academic Ranking of World Universities (2017). Retrieved 22 February 2018, http://www.shanghairanking.com

Alladin, I. (1992). International Co-operation in Higher Education: The Globalization of Universities. Higher Education in Europe, vol XVII, (4), 4–13, Unesco European Centre for Higher Education. Bucharest, Romania. https://doi.org/10.1080/0379772920170402

Baudrillard, J. (1994). Simulacra and simulation. University of Michigan press.

Benneworth, P. & Sanderson, A. (2009). The Regional Engagement of Universities: Building capacity in a sparse innovation environment. Higher Education Management and Policy, 21(1), 131–148. https://doi.org/10.1787/hemp-v21-art8-en

Birnbaum, R. (1989). The Cybernetic Institution: Toward an integration of governance theories. Higher Education, 18(2), 239–253. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00139183

Bleiklie, I. (2014). Comparing University Organizations across Boundaries. Higher Education, 67(4), 381–391. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-013-9683-z

Bologna Process (2018). European Higher Education Area and Bologna Process. Retrieved 28 February 2018, http://www.ehea.info

Bridgestock, L. (2017) World University Ranking Methodologies Compared. Retrieved 22 February 2018, https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings-articles/world-university-rankings/world-university-ranking-methodologies-compared

Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education (2015). Flow Charts. Retrieved 7 December 2017, http://carnegieclassifications.iu.edu/downloads/CCIHE2015-FlowCharts-01Feb16.pdf

Friedman, T. (2007). The World is Flat. A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century. New York: Picador.

Hazelkorn, E. (2015). Globalization and the Reputation Race. Rankings and the Reshaping of Higher Education. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137446671_1

Husén, T. (1991). The idea of the university. Changing roles, current crisis, and future challenges. Prospects, 21(2), 169–188. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02336059

Marginson, S. & Considine, M. (2000). The Enterprise University: Power, Governance and Reinvention in Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Marginson, S. & van der Wende, M. (2007). To rank or to be ranked: The impact of global rankings in higher education. Journal of Studies in International Education, 11(3/4), 306–329. https://doi.org/10.1177/1028315307303544

Marginson, S., Kaur, S. & Sawir, E. (Eds.) (2011). Higher Education in the Asia-Pacific. Strategic Responses to Globalization. Higher Education Dynamics (Vol. 36). Dordrecht: Springer. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-1500-4

Martin, M., (Ed.) (2007). Cross-Border Higher Education: Regulation, Quality Assurance and Impact. UNESCO International Institute for Educational Planning, Vol 1. Paris: UNESCO.

Moodie, G. (2017). Unintended consequences: The use of metrics in higher education. Academic Matters, (Winter 2017). Retrieved 7 December 2017, https://academicmatters.ca/2017/11/unintended-consequences-the-use-of-metrics-in-higher-education/

Moran, P. & Kendall, A. (2009). Baudrillard and the End of Education. International Journal of Research and Method in Education, 32(3), 327–335. https://doi.org/10.1080/17437270903259873

NCPRE (2018). National Center for Professional & Research Ethics, Retrieved 28 February 2018, http://ethicscenter.csl.illinois.edu

Neave, G. (1997). The European Dimension in Higher Education. Background document to the Netherlands seminar on "Higher Education and the Nation State", Center for Higher Education Policy Studies. Twente, The Netherlands, (April 1997).

OECD Higher Education Programme (2018). The Assessment of Higher Education Learning Outcomes. Retrieved 22 February 2018, http://www.oecd.org/education/imhe/theassessmentofhighereducationlearningoutcomes.htm

Ranking Web of Universities (2018) Ranking Web of Universities Edition of 1R Semester of the Year 2018. Retrieved 22 February 2018, https://www.upc.edu/ranquings/en/upc-at-international-rankings/rankings/ranking-web-of-universities

Rothblatt, S. (2006). The modern university and its discontents: The fate of Newman's legacies in Britain and America. Cambridge University Press.

Schriewer, J. (2004). Multiple Internationalities: The emergence of a world-level ideology and the persistence of idiosyncratic world-views. In C. Charle, J. Schriewer & P. Wagner (Eds.), Transnational Intellectual Networks: Forms of Academic Knowledge and the Search for Cultural Identities (pp. 473–533). Frankfurt: Campus Verlag.

Smith, E. (2010). Pitfalls and Promises: The use of secondary data analysis in educational research. British Journal of Educational Studies, 56(3), 323-339. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8527.2008.00405.x

Unesco Global Education Monitoring Report (n.d.). Retrieved 22 February 2018, https://en.unesco.org/gem-report/

U.S. News & World Report Education (2017). How U.S. News Calculated the Best Global Universities Rankings. Retrieved 22 February 2018, https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/articles/methodology

Van Raan, A. F. J. (2005). Fatal Attraction: Conceptual and methodological problems in the ranking of universities by bibliometric methods. Scientometrics, 62(1), 133–143. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-005-0008-6

[1] Corresponding author: bdenman@une.edu.au