Channel, Filter or Buffer? National Policy Responses to Global Rankings

Changes in academic practices, institutions and systems, as well as shifts in national policies toward higher education are in various ways linked to what is happening in global and transnational arenas and in other higher education systems. This chapter explores the potential connection between international university rankings as a form of global pressure and changes in national reforms and policies. Do rankings have the ability to shape national policy problems and the political responses to these (Chapter 1 of this volume)? And if so, how does this happen and how can such an influence be accounted for? Has this kind of global pressure become a factor that has to be seriously vectored in when we examine how policies are shaped, how policymakers define their policy agenda and how they identify problems and solutions in their policies toward universities? These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.