Rankings and Global Knowledge Governance

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiii

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2. Introduction

   • Tero Erkkilä, Ossi Piironen

   Pages 1-17

3. Theory: Rankings as Policy Instruments

   • Tero Erkkilä, Ossi Piironen

   Pages 19-50

4. Ideational Background of Global Knowledge Governance

   • Tero Erkkilä, Ossi Piironen

   Pages 51-82

5. Rise of Global Rankings and the Competitive Logic

   • Tero Erkkilä, Ossi Piironen

   Pages 83-121

6. Field Structuration and Fragmentation of Global Rankings

   • Tero Erkkilä, Ossi Piironen

   Pages 123-175

7. From Global to Local: Regional- and City-Level Alternatives to Global Rankings

   • Tero Erkkilä, Ossi Piironen

   Pages 177-217

8. Rankings and Global Knowledge Governance

   • Tero Erkkilä, Ossi Piironen

   Pages 219-249

9. Back Matter

   Pages 251-260

   PDF

Higher education and innovation policies are today seen as central elements in national economic competitiveness, increasingly measured by global rankings. The book analyses the evolution of indicator-based global knowledge governance, where various national attributes have been evaluated under international comparative assessment. Reflecting this general trend, the Shanghai ranking, first published in 2003, has pressured governments and universities all over the world to improve their performance in global competition. More recently, as global rankings have met criticism for their methodology and scope, measurements of various sizes and shapes have proliferated: some celebrating novel methodological solutions, others breaking new conceptual grounds. This book takes a fresh look at developments in the field of knowledge governance by showing how emerging indicators, innovation indexes and subnational comparisons are woven into the existing fabric of measurements that govern our ideas of higher education, innovation and competitiveness. This book argues that while rankings are becoming more numerous and fragmented, the new knowledge products, nevertheless, tend to reproduce ideas and practices existing in the field of global measurement.

• university rankings
• national economic competitiveness
• policy instruments
• knowledge economy
• field structuration
• global rankings

“The core strength of this book lies in its broad historical analysis of how global rankings have evolved over time. … Overall this book provides a comprehensive overview of the development of global rankings for public management over time and of how higher education … . the way the authors present historical background afforded me a holistic view of how and why higher education has been associated with global rankings and competitiveness for more than a decade.” (Busra Kulakoglu, Educational Review, Vol. 74 (3), 2022) “Erkkilä and Piironen have done an impressive study of the rise and impact of the greatly expanded system of global rankings -- particularly of universities and higher education.  Rankings play a central governance role in national (and world) societies, especially as these are now seen as “knowledge societies,” so this study will be of great and general interest.” (John W. Meyer, Stanford University, USA)

“This book’s special and very original contribution to a growing field of research is revealing the common features of various sorts of rankings going well beyond the field of university rankings, tracing their common ideational background and highlighting the development and fragmentation of rankings with new actors entering the field. Researchers, students, administrators and policy actors get profound insights from reading this carefully researched and well written book.” (Richard Münch, University of Bamberg, Germany)

• University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

  Tero Erkkilä

• Ministry for Foreign Affairs of Finland, Helsinki, Finland

  Ossi Piironen

Tero Erkkilä is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Helsinki, Finland. His previous publications include Government Transparency (2012) and Global University Rankings (2013), both published by Palgrave Macmillan.
 
Ossi Piironen is Senior Researcher at the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, Finland. He has published in various peer reviewed journals and has several years of experience teaching in global governance and methodology of political science at the University of Helsinki, Finland.

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