Comment by Nunzio Quacquarelli

Several items about or by leading figures in the ranking business have appeared recently. Nunzio Quacquarelli, director of QS, says:

"QS research has become highly respected and every year is referenced in roughly 1000 different newspapers, journals and web sites – a Who’s Who of the best media around the world"
There has also been an enormous amount of criticism, especially by academic experts such as Anthony van Raan, Simon Marginson, Eric Beerkens and so on. In comparison, favourable comments by Alan Kantrow, former editor of the McKinsey Quarterly, and Martin Ince do not really count for much. We also have that old quotation from Richard Sykes, "it takes smart people to know smart people." This begs the question of whether the ability to sign up for a an academic mailing list is sufficient to be a certified smart person. Sykes, incidentally, is described as the Rector of Imperial College London, which he has not actually been for nearly two years.

Quacquarelli then refers to Paul Thurman, a specialist in public health statistics, who says that a 2% response rate yielding 9,500 responses is as good as or better than most political opinion polls. Perhaps, although political polls are far from perfect. But this comment misses an important point. QS may have achieved a representative sample of subscribers to World Scientific, an academic publishing company based in Singapore with links to Imperial College (no wonder Richard Sykes is talking about smart people) but are those subscribers representative of expert academic opinion?


The article continues:

"Over 8000 academics have attended seminars specifically debating the QS World University Rankings methodology. Amongst attendees there has been almost universal acceptance of the QS ranking criteria."

Yes, but what matters is those who did not attend attend the seminars.

While we are on the subject of meetings with academics, it might be worth remembering a meeting in Kuala Lumpur in November 2005 at which Quacquarelli is reported to have said that QS was "not aware of Malaysia's racial composition" (the Star 18/11/2005). This is forgivable. After all, the QS office nearest to Malaysia is in Singapore which is very far away. Another report indicated that the "talk attracted comments from the floor some of who disagreed with his ranking methodology." (Sun 22/11/2005).

It seems that Nunzio Quacquarelli sees nothing wrong in the THE-QS rankings. Improvements have been made but there is certainly room for more. Failing to recognise the flaws in the rankings will not help anyone.