Berlin Principles of IREG
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| IREG Observatory: University Rankings under scrutiny |
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(Warsaw, March 8, 2010). The first General Assembly of the IREG Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellence met in Warsaw, March 8, 2010. This new global organization based in Warsaw was established in October, 2010; its goal is the improvement of the quality of international and national ranking of higher education institutions. Considering the increasing importance of rankings among future students, and fact that rankings influence financial decisions of government bodies responsible for higher education, the organization decided to carry out, on request, audit of some leading international rankings in order to find out if they meet the highest methodology standards.
The IREG group (International Ranking Expert Group) met for the first time in Warsaw in 2002 (IREG-0). The following IREG conferences and meetings took place in Washington DC in 2004 (IREG-1), Berlin in 2006 (IREG-2), Shanghai in 2007 (IREG-3) and in Astana in 2009 (IREG-4). The next conference (IREG-5) will be in Berlin in October, 2010, and the following (IREG-6) in Taipei.
The growing importance of university rankings and drive to improve their quality caused the loose organizational structure to strengthen itself by transforming into an international association under the name “IREG Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellence” registered in Brussels (under the Belgian Law friendly towards international organizations) but with its secretariat in Warsaw. By choosing Warsaw international rankers community expressed appreciation for quality of rankings done by Perspektywy Education Foundation and its international activity in this field. The IREG Observatory’s Executive Committee is led by President, dr Jan Sadlak and vice presidents: prof. Nian Cai Liu of Jiao Tong University (China), the author of renown Shanghai Ranking, Gero Federkeil of Centre for Higher Education Development (Germany) and Waldemar Siwinski of Perspektywy Education Foundation (Poland). Bob Morse of the “US News & World Report”, the author of American rankings, is one of the founders of IREG Observatory (www.ireg-observatory.org) . The audit criteria of university rankings adopted in Warsaw have been based foremost on the so called Berlin Principles established at the IREG-2 conference in Berlin. Those rankings that will positively pass the audit will be entitled to use “IREG Recognized” label. The General Assembly at its meeting in Warsaw admitted four new members to the IREG Observatory: the Higher Education Evaluation and Accreditation Council of Taiwan - HEEACT (Taiwan), Quacquareli Symonds - QS (UK), Lomonosov Moscow State University (Russia) and l'Observatoir des Science et des Techniques - OST (France). The full list of IREG Observatory members is available on the website: www.ireg-observatory.org . Following the General Assembly, IREG Observatory members and rectors from Poland debated at the "round table" on: What should be done to improve standing of humanities and social sciences in academic rankings? , organized with the support of Warsaw School of Social Sciences (SWPS) and ELSEVIER BV. Additional information: dr Kazimierz Bilanow, Managing Director, IREG Observatory, e-mail:
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