(Berlin, June 15,  2010)There is a limited number of places for people from developing countries for which the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) will support the participation (travel costs to and inside Germany, registration fee, hotel).  This is linked with a one week programme in Germany including participation in IREG-5, a workshop on ranking at the CHE Centre for Higher Education Development and visits to other German institutions involved in activities in ranking and evaluation in higher education. This programme is eligible to people from countries from the DAC list of ODA recipients only.

In case of interest please contact Gero Federkeil, CHE Centre for Higher Education Development, e-mail: This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Letter to the editor

The issue of March 27, 2010 of The Economist in its article "University Rankings League Apart" you discuss some of the current state of global academic rankings. While recognizing their impact on institutions, concerns are raised with regard to problems inherent in doing such rankings. The article ends by saying that "all that remains undone is a credible, rigorous ranking of league tables themselves."Your readers might be interested to note that such a system of evaluating rankings is currently being developed by the IREG Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellence.

Warsaw 2002 (IREG-0)  International Ranking Expert Group (IREG) emerged as a joint initiative of the UNESCO  European Centre for Higher Education (UNESCO-CEPES) and a group of international ranking experts concerned with the quality of academic ranking during a meeting in

Consecutive international IREG conferences took place in:

- Washington, 2004 IREG-1  (organized with the support of UNECSO-CEPES and the Insititute for Higher Education Policy)

- Berlin,  2006 IREG-2, (organized with the support of UNESCO-CEPES and the CHE-Centre of Higher Education Development)

generally considered the guidelines for quality ranking.

- Shanghai, 2007 IREG-3 (organized with the support of UNESCO-CEPES and Jiao Tong University)

- Astana, 2008 IREG-4 (organized with the support of UNESCO-CEPES and the Ministry of Education and Science of Kazakhstan)

- Brussels, 2009  IREG Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellence established and registered in Brussels under the Belgian law as an international association not-for-profit.

- Warsaw, 2010 Round table debate on: What should be done to improve standing of humanities and social sciences in academic rankings?

The next IREG-5 conference Academic rankings: from popularity to reliability and relevance will be held in Berlin, October 6-8, 2010 (with the support of CHE-Centre for Higher Education Development and the German Federal Ministry of Research and Higher Education).

IREG-6 conference has been scheduled in Taipei for 2012.