Oh dear, the Irish Universities are slipping down the University Rankings
again, our own included. On the face of it the most recent Times Higher
Education (THE) rankings tell a sorry story.
A University's position in the rankings is, I would suggest, directly proportional to the size of its budget. Rich Universities do well, poor ones do badly. When Ireland had lots of money our Universities rose up the rankings, when the money ran out we slipped back down. So does the money follow the ranking, or does the ranking follow the money? I suggest the latter. In other words money buys you up the rankings, its as simple as that.
I remember replying to an academic blog, written when we were at the peak of our ranking achievement, that the real test of our performance would be our ability to maintain that level when the money ran out. Well as the money ran out our corresponding drop in the rankings was almost instantaneous.
So what benefit is it to a poor country to pour money into Universities? Have the rankings not just become a rather pointless end in itself, a kind of higher-educational rich-list?
Here is a sobering fact. Most software companies are finding it extremely difficult to find good numerate software engineering graduates. The highly ranked Universities of the West are simply not capable of producing them in sufficient numbers. Big multi-nationals and small start-ups alike are heading over to Bulgaria and Romania to find and recruit people with the talents that they need. I was talking to the CEO of a UK-based start-up recently who was just back from Sofia Bulgaria, where he had employed 5 people and set up an office. Microsoft's research centre in Dublin recruits heavily from the same part of the world.
Now the Universities of Eastern Europe are hardly known for troubling the University rankings. Not one in the top 300 in the recent THE ranking....
A University's position in the rankings is, I would suggest, directly proportional to the size of its budget. Rich Universities do well, poor ones do badly. When Ireland had lots of money our Universities rose up the rankings, when the money ran out we slipped back down. So does the money follow the ranking, or does the ranking follow the money? I suggest the latter. In other words money buys you up the rankings, its as simple as that.
I remember replying to an academic blog, written when we were at the peak of our ranking achievement, that the real test of our performance would be our ability to maintain that level when the money ran out. Well as the money ran out our corresponding drop in the rankings was almost instantaneous.
So what benefit is it to a poor country to pour money into Universities? Have the rankings not just become a rather pointless end in itself, a kind of higher-educational rich-list?
Here is a sobering fact. Most software companies are finding it extremely difficult to find good numerate software engineering graduates. The highly ranked Universities of the West are simply not capable of producing them in sufficient numbers. Big multi-nationals and small start-ups alike are heading over to Bulgaria and Romania to find and recruit people with the talents that they need. I was talking to the CEO of a UK-based start-up recently who was just back from Sofia Bulgaria, where he had employed 5 people and set up an office. Microsoft's research centre in Dublin recruits heavily from the same part of the world.
Now the Universities of Eastern Europe are hardly known for troubling the University rankings. Not one in the top 300 in the recent THE ranking....
