The differentiation of the strategic profile of higher education institutions. New positioning indicators based on microdata

We address the issue of differentiation of the profile of universities and offer a set of new indicators based on microdata at the individual level and the application of robust nonparametric efficiency measures. In particular, we use efficiency measures in order to characterize the way in which universities use their inputs (academic and non academic staff, funding) in the effort to position themselves in the space of output (undergraduate teaching, postgraduate education, fundamental research, contract research, third mission), while keeping efficiency under control. The strategic problem of universities is defined as making best use of existing resources in the short run, while enlarging the scope of autonomy in procuring additional resources in the long run. In order to make best use of resources universities are led to increase their specialization and differentiate their offering profile. This happens even if the European institutional landscape does not encourage universities to differentiate.     

Two-phase edge outlier detection method for technology opportunity discovery

It has been observed that Southeast Asian countries and universities have ranked poorly in global research productivity and impact. The same is true for the field of language and linguistics. Some studies revealed that productivity and citation patterns in this field are lower compared to other fields of study. Thus, this study sought to examine the research performance of SEA countries and universities in the field of language and linguistics for efficient policy-making. The research performance of each SEA country and university was assessed through Scopus database using the following bibliometric indicators: total number of publications (P), total number of citations excluding self-citations (C), citations per publication (CPP), percent of non-cited articles (%PNC), and h-index. Findings revealed that SEA countries have only produced almost 2 % of all published articles in language and linguistics and around 1 % share in overall worldwide field citations. Interestingly, both the SEA countries and universities exhibit a trend toward increasing their yearly research productivity and citations. However, research productivity and citations in the field of language and linguistics are dominated by selected universities in each country particularly in Brunei, Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines. This study has implications for research policy-making and future studies.     

Visibility in international rankings. Strategies for enhancing the competitiveness of Spanish universities

The world-wide popularity of university rankings has spurred the debate about the quality and performance of higher education systems and has had a considerable impact on global society in light of the internationalisation of higher education. While useful for policy makers, such rankings also furnish information on an institution’s “prestige”, which may in turn contribute to more effective resource capture (students, funding, projects). Certain university profiles and missions may prevent many universities from climbing to higher positions, however. One important question in this regard is: how many of a country’s universities can stand at the top of international rankings? The present article attempts to answer this question on the grounds of a study of the Spanish higher education system, and more specifically of an institutional alliance consisting of four high quality universities. A series of research activity indicators drawn from the IUNE Observatory are used to compare this alliance to leading Spanish and international universities and explore whether their visibility and consequently their position in international rankings would be enhanced if they were able to appear under a joint identity. This prospective study also addresses a series of strategies that the Spanish higher education system might implement to successfully rise to the challenges posed by future scenarios.     

Research evaluation of research-oriented universities in Taiwan from 1993 to 2003

Publications have been regarded as the most significant output indicating the research performance of universities. This paper uses ISI Essential Science Indicators (ESI) database to investigate the academic performance of research-oriented universities in Taiwan, adopting the bibliometric method from both quantitative and qualitative perspectives. The data cover the time span for 11 years from 1993 to 2003. The performance indicators applied in this study includes the number of papers, the number of citations, the average citations per paper, the number of highly cited papers, the number of hot papers, and the number of top papers. The research performance and the strength of those universities are revealed in this study, and it is found that National Taiwan University leads among these universities though each university still shows strengths in various specific fields.     

Educational reforms and internationalization of universities: evidence from major regions of the world

Internationalization of universities has become a worldwide phenomenon as global economic integration continues to make its way forcefully into the higher education. The objective of the study is to develop a model for internationalization of universities with the transformation of some promising macroeconomic variables i.e., educational reforms and economic growth in the seven largest regions of the world [namely, East Asia and Pacific (sample 25 countries); Europe and Central Asia (40 countries); Latin America and Caribbean (27 countries); Middle East and North Africa (17 countries); North America (22 countries); South Asia (7 countries) and Sub-Saharan Africa (21 countries)]. The data has been analyzed by panel fixed effect regression from the period of 1990–2011. In addition to transform inputs into output, the study employed eleven indicators of education and five indicators for growth, where the resulting vector is internationalization. The results show the dynamic linkages between educational indicators and economic factors in the selected regions of the World. In East Asia and Pacific region, tertiary and higher education expenditures per student increase the economic factors. Higher education is a powerful driver of long-term growth in Europe and Central Asia. Governments of the state should have to focus on higher education enrolment, as it does not have any significant contribution to increase GDP; gross capital formation and FDI in Latin America and Caribbean region. Higher education enrolment in MENA region significantly increases growth factors on the cost of increase gross national expenditures. Investment in general education and other generic human capital is of the utmost importance in creating an enabling environment for FDI in North America. It is imperative for South Asia to encourage the skill levels and education opportunities for females, in order to maximize the effects of FDI on the female human capital stock and therefore economic growth. Tertiary school enrolment and tertiary expenditures per student identified the importance of tertiary education in Sub-Saharan Africa. The results conclude that educational indicators improve the economic gains, which ultimately reap out the benefit of internationalization.     

URAP-TR: a national ranking for Turkish universities based on academic performance

This study describes the basic methodological approach and the results of URAP-TR, the first national ranking system for Turkish universities. URAP-TR is based on objective bibliometric data resources and includes both size-dependent and size-independent indicators that balance total academic performance with performance per capita measures. In the context of Turkish national university rankings, the paper discusses the implications of employing multiple size-independent and size-dependent indicators on national university rankings. Fine-grained ranking categories for Turkish universities are identified through an analysis of ranking results across multiple indicators.     

Dentistry scientometric analysis: a comparative study between Brazil and other most productive countries in the area

This research aims at performing a comparative study between the Brazilian scientific production in Dentistry, from 2000 to 2009 and countries that contribute with at least 2 % of the world’s scientific production indexed in the Scopus database. More specifically, we intend to assess the annual Brazilian scientific production by comparing it to the other countries’, analyze the Brazilian and other countries’ publications in journals with higher impact factors, as well as to highlight the scientific production from these countries and its international visibility, measured by its total and by its average of citations and normalized citation index per year, by comparing the countries, and to compare the index h of such countries. As work procedure, the SCImago Journal and Country Rank was used as source, identifying the group of producing countries in the Dentistry area from 1996 to 2009. From a total of 136 countries, 13 were highlighted as the most productive, each one of them accounting for at least 2 % the worldwide scientific production in the area. The following indicators were raised for each country: number of produced documents, total of citations, self-citations, average of citations per document and index h. We verified that Brazil is the only country in Latin America that is pictured among the most productive ones in the Dentistry area. We observed that Brazil presents a growing visibility and impact in the international scenery, what suggests that its production is constantly consolidating, with Brazilian scientific recognition in the main vehicles of dissemination in the area.     

Reputation — A hard-currency medium of interchange

Within the theoretical framework of reputation as a social medium of interchange in the system of higher education this study analyses the institutional stratification of university departments in the field of economics and business administration. In contrast to the still prevailing normative idea of basic equality between academic institutions in the Federal Republic of Germany the empirical results indicate a stable hierarchy of reputation, very similar to the stratification pattern typical of the US American university system. Structural equation models show that the institutional hierarchy can be predicted with considerable accuracy with indicators of scientific activity and impact and structural characteristics of departments and universities. The analyses show both the performance-based validity of institutional reputation and the bias in access to the competitive academic markets due to structural differences of the universities and departments.     

A Recent View of Engineering Education in Pakistan

Engineering education in Pakistan receives less attention from governmental quarters than its importance to the country would justify. Evidence of the fact is that of the 24 universities established in Pakistan since the nation was founded, only six offer engineering. Thus the country has been unable to produce the needed manpower for its development. Furthermore, the meager national investment in engineering education offers little hope of improvement. Similarly, the total human resource output from the universities is unimpressive. In the four‐year study period reported in this paper, less than eight percent of the enrolled candidates were successful in earning post‐graduate degrees.¹ Only one percent of these had begun doctorate level research, with none receiving degrees by the end of the period. This paper reviews academic trends affecting engineering students and their priorities. Graduation rates and governmental financial support for the study period have been statistically analyzed.     

Multiparametric characterization of scientometric performance profiles assisted by neural networks: a study of Mexican higher education institutions

Development of accurate systems to assess academic research performance is an essential topic in national science agendas around the world. Providing quantitative elements such as scientometric rankings and indicators have contributed to measure prestige and excellence of universities, but more sophisticated computational tools are seldom exploited. We compare the evolution of Mexican scientific production in Scopus and the Web of Science as well as Mexico’s scientific productivity in relation to the growth of the National Researchers System of Mexico is analyzed. As a main analysis tool we introduce an artificial intelligence procedure based on self-organizing neural networks. The neural network technique proves to be a worthy scientometric data mining and visualization tool which automatically carries out multiparametric scientometric characterizations of the production profiles of the 50 most productive Mexican Higher Education Institutions (in Scopus database). With this procedure we automatically identify and visually depict clusters of institutions that share similar bibliometric profiles in bidimensional maps. Four perspectives were represented in scientometric maps: productivity, impact, expected visibility and excellence. Since each cluster of institutions represents a bibliometric pattern of institutional performance, the neural network helps locate various bibliometric profiles of academic production, and the identification of groups of institutions which have similar patterns of performance. Also, scientometric maps allow for the identification of atypical behaviors (outliers) which are difficult to identify with classical tools, since they outstand not because of a disparate value in just one variable, but due to an uncommon combination of a set of indicators values.     

论高校人才素质培养

由于当今世界各国之间的科技和人才竞争日益激烈,培养大量有创新能力的高素质人才是国家生存发展的基础,而高等院校在解决人才问题上起着非常重要的作用。结合我国的教育现状谈谈如何加强大学素质教育,培养有创新能力的高素质人才。     

Correlation analysis between university research competitiveness and library’s scholarly information in OECD nations and Korea

Beginning from the premise that research competitiveness at the university level is the starting point for national competitiveness as a whole, this paper analyzes the correlation between university research-related performance and the scholarly or academic resources available through a country’s library system. An analysis of this correlation from two different angles — a macroscopic approach considering universities in OECD nations and a microscopic approach focusing only upon universities in Korea — found that there is indeed a significant correlation between university research performance and the scholarly information available at libraries. A regression analysis of the two approaches also found that the more journal titles subscribed to by university libraries and the higher their budget for materials, the greater the contribution university libraries make to university research competitiveness in Korea as well as other OECD countries. In this light, in order for Korea to reach a level of research competitiveness comparable to other OECD members, policies need to be created that will effectively increase the number of journals subscribed to by university libraries.     

Competition for funding as an indicator of research competitiveness

Summary Research quality is the cornerstone of modern science, it is used in the understanding of reputational differences among scientific and academic institutions. Traditionally, scientific activity is measured by a set of indicators and well-established bibliometric techniques based on the number of academic papers published in top-ranked journals or on the number of citations of these papers. These indicators are usually critical in measuring differences in research performance, both at individual and at scientific institutional levels. In this paper, we introduce an alternative and complementary set of indicators based on the results of competition for research funding, that aims to enlarge the framework in which research performance has traditionally been measured. Theoretical support for this paper is found in the role that the search for funding plays in the researchers’ credibility cycle as well as in peer review, the basic instrument for the allocation of public R&D funds. Our method analyses the outcomes of the researchers’ struggle for funding, using data from research proposal applications and awards, as the unit of observation, and aggregating them by research institutions to rank them in relative scales of research competitiveness.     

Use of citation per publication as an indicator to evaluate contingent valuation research

This is the first article using bibliometrics to study the field of contingent valuation research. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the contingent valuation research performance based on all the related articles in SCI and SSCI databases from 1991 to 2005. An indicator named citation per publication (CPP) was presented in this study to assess the impact of article output per year, different countries, institutes, and authors from the worldwide. Publication per institute (PPI) in a country was used to be an indicator to compare institute’s research performance by country. Citation analysis was made to select the most frequently cited articles since publication to 2005 of each year. A citation model was applied to describe the relationship between the cumulative number of citations and article life. The results indicate that with the increase article output per year, the CPP decreased slightly since 1997. The USA produced 55% of all pertinent articles. Institutes from the UK had a higher PPI. The most prolific institutes and authors, and the most frequently cited articles per year were all listed. In addition, a citation model was successfully applied to evaluate performance of each year, and the most frequently cited articles of each year were also compared by the model.     

Brazilian scientific production,financial support,established investigators and doctoral graduates

In the near future, Brazil is expected to face a number of challenges with regards to economic and social development, and scientific production is a critical aspect of this development process. Over the past 30 years, there has been an almost 18-fold increase in the number of brazilian papers published, up from about 2,000 in 1980 to more than 35,000 in 2009. In this study we analyze the evolution of scientific production in terms of input (resources and permanent investigators) and output (scientific papers and doctorate graduates). We evaluate whether structural investments and the number of investigators at universities are both able to explain the increase in the number of papers, by investigating the relationships among growth rates in investments and the quantity of the papers published, as well as the number of doctorate graduates and active permanent investigators. As an indication of the fluctuations in investments pertaining to academic research, we consider the budget history of the largest Brazilian federal agencies charged with providing academic grants. We observe that the burgeoning number of papers has occurred independently of investments and the number of established investigators, thus suggesting an increase in the efficiency of Brazilian scientific output. Moreover, this increase in efficiency has occurred in conjunction with an increased number of Doctoral graduates per year. In this context, we propose that an evaluation of the academic structure is necessary in order to ascertain the risks of this increased “efficiency”. Moreover, the recent cut of over US$ 1 billion announced by the Brazilian government may jeopardize the quality of scientific output in the future.     

Advanced indicators of productivity of universitiesAn application of robust nonparametric methods to Italian data

Summary This paper explores scale, scope and trade-off effects in scientific research and education. External conditions may dramatically affect the measurement of performance. We apply theDaraio&Simar's (2005) nonparametric methodology to robustlytake into account these factors and decompose the indicators of productivity accordingly. From a preliminary investigation on the Italian system of universities, we find that economies of scale and scope are not significant factors in explaining research and education productivity. We do not find any evidence of the trade-off research vs teaching. About the trade-off academic publications vs industry oriented research, it seems that, initially, collaboration with industry may improve productivity, but beyond a certain level the compliance with industry expectations may be too demanding and deteriorate the publication profile. Robust nonparametric methods in efficiency analysis are shown as useful tools for measuring and explaining the performance of a public research system of universities.     

A new input indicator for the assessment of science &; technology research?

Traditional input indicators of research performance, such as research funding, number of active scientists, and international collaborations, have been widely used to assess countries’ publication output. However, while publication in today’s English-only research world requires sound research in readable English, English proficiency may be a problem for the productivity of non-native English-speaking (NNES) countries. Data provided by the Brazilian National Research Council (CNPq) containing the academic profile of 51,223 Brazilian researchers show a correlation between English proficiency and publication output. According to our results, traditional input indicators may fall short of providing an accurate representation of the research performance of NNES developing countries.     

Benchmarking international scientific excellence: Are highly cited research papers an appropriate frame of reference?

This paper introduces a citation-based "systems approach" for analyzing the various institutional and cognitive dimensions of scientific excellence within national research systems. The methodology, covering several aggregate levels, focuses on the most highly cited research papers in the international journal literature. The distribution of these papers across institutions and disciplines enables objective comparisons their (possible) international-level scientific excellence. By way of example, we present key results from a recent series of analyses of the research system in the Netherlands in the mid 1990s, focussing on the performance of the universities across the various major scientific disciplines within the context of the entire system"s scientific performance. Special attention is paid to the contribution in the world"s top 1% and top 10% most highly cited research papers. The findings indicate that these high performance papers provide a useful analytical framework - both in terms of transparency, cognitive and institutional differentiation, as well as its scope for domestic and international comparisons - providing new indicators for identifying "world class" scientific excellence at the aggregate level. The average citation scores of these academic "Centres of Scientific Excellence" appear to be an inadequate predictor of their production of highly cited papers. However, further critical reflection and in-depth validation studies are needed to establish the true potential of this approach for science policy analyses and evaluation of research performance. This revised version was published online in August 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

The European perspective on S&T indicators

The S&T indicators activity is first described as a complex process involving a variety of functions, capabilities and institutions; this provides a framework to assess the S&T indicators activity in a country or, more generally, in a research system. Then, the main features of the S&T indicators scene in Europe are presented: regarding the countries, the diversity of the institutional settings and the growing potentials is stressed; among countries, at European level, the important and original role of the European Commission in the dynamics of the S&T indicators activites in Europe is presented; finally, it is argued that the European scene consists of a diversity of research groups which are in competition and collaboration, sharing a number of intellectual concerns and orientations. The perspectives for S&T indicators activity in the EU countries are defined by the greater quantity of source data, by the conceptual advances regarding the S&T system and by the new needs of the decision-makers. In conclusion, some alternative scenarios are suggested.