University ranking is a marketing plus factor because the academe is not only for knowledge and labor production without cost. It has to attract students and funders to finance its operations and maintain its facilities to remain in the “business”. That is the reality of the academic world amidst the expectations that it must, foremost, serve humanity rather than make a profit. Quality education has a price, and only those who can afford it—with personal funds or scholarships and sponsorships—enjoy its benefits.
Typically done by websites, academics, governments, or private organizations, one of the parameters in university ranking is excellence in research based on outputs or publications of faculty quantified by citations, h-index, i10-index, impact factors of journals, etc. In general, state universities and colleges (SUCs) are paired much better than their counterparts in private higher education institutions (PHEIs), except for those in the latter that are well-funded and with big names. Thus, research and publication have economic benefits beyond knowledge production and intellectual growth.
However, initial university investments are needed to rank high in research outputs. Universities must spend on research spaces and facilities, laboratories with equipment, support personnel, etc. It is not enough to tell faculty to research and publish without the software and hardware. Internal research funds have to be made available to faculty to hone their skills so they can enrich their research portfolio to compete for external grants. The host universities also earned from administrative costs of the research budget if allowed. Some universities have reduced teaching loads of qualified faculty so they can devote more time to research and mentor colleagues who are novices in research.
Aside from giving points for promotion for published journal articles or book chapters indexed by the ASEAN Citation Index (ACI), SCOPUS, or Web of Science databases, some universities also offer cash incentives to encourage more faculty publications. The goal is to improve university ranking and meet degree program accreditation regularly, which translates to more revenues from enrollment. Meanwhile, economic benefits for faculty are apparent in addition to the research grants received for producing the publication.
So, imagine how small and struggling universities and colleges could meet the ranking competition. They can only admire those high-ranking and wish they could be the same one day. But the more they drop in the ranking as the well-funded SUCs and PHEIs pour more research funds and push harder their faculty to publish. No publication means no promotion and no salary increase. These universities pay high salaries to senior faculty members by rank—associate professors and full professors—thus, the drive to publish is high.
This development explains why some former higher-ranking universities with limited research funds scale down despite having stabilized or achieved more compared with their past performances. Seemingly, as it is now, university ranking is not about getting better but about outdoing others—as one increases its rank, the other decreases. It is a competition—a typical feature in a market economy—where the quality of education is compared, and the best gets a big pie of knowledge consumers.
Meanwhile, despite the digital world in which universities operate now, some still need to publish or sustain their university or discipline-based journals in a true online platform or update their promotion policies of recognizing online faculty publications. The faculty members of such universities are in a quandary because articles in printed journals cannot earn citations even if used as references. They are also discouraged from publishing in online journals or books because these do not add to their points for promotion in rank.
Indeed, university ranking based on research outputs is a business—publishing has costs and benefits.
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Author’s email: enriquegoracion@su.edu.ph
