International university rankings as indicators for the quality of the Spanish universities

Abstract

The mission of Spanish universities is to serve society by promoting the improvement of quality of life, culture and economic development. This objective is achieved through teaching, research, transfer and dissemination of knowledge. It is essential to ensure that the actions and strategies implemented by Spanish universities are guided by these objectives, which is why a quality control policy is essential. Within this policy, the comparison with foreign universities may be interesting, and institutions controlling for universities' quality are tempted to use international university rankings prepared by companies as a substitute for a more in-depth and adequate analysis. In this work it is verified that the most cited international rankings do not evaluate the quality, but the prestige of the universities based on mainly bibliometric criteria and surveys. In this way, a very partial view of the universities is obtained that does not consider the different functions that they have been entrusted with, at least in the case of Spain. Finally, some of the risks involved in using these rankings as guides in the definition of Spanish university policy are noted.

Keywords

• global rankings
• multicriteria rankings
• higher education
• quality management
• international competition
• university policy