Examining Major Rankings According to the Berlin Principles

While the ranking of higher education institutions (HEIs) has become more and more popular, there are increasing concerns about the quality of such ranking. In response to such legitimate expectations, in May 2006, the International Ranking Expert Group (IREG) developed and endorsed a guideline document – the Berlin Principles on Ranking of Higher Education Institutions (hereafter called the Berlin Principles), which consist of sixteen descriptive and prescriptive principles for ranking covering four aspects: the purpose and goal of ranking; the design and weighting of indicators; the collection and processing of data; and the presentation of ranking results. The purpose of this paper is to examine selected HEIs rankings according to the Berlin Principles as well as to propose concrete ‘Fourteen Criteria’ which, if followed, could enhance the quality of ranking. 1. The authors would like to acknowledge that research for this paper was partly supported by the National Social Science Foundation of China (Gr...