Berlin Principles of IREG
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| Letter to The Economist |
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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. (http://www.ireg-observatory.org/) IREG Observatory plans to undertake a responsibility in raising the quality and standards of university rankings [for institutional and program rankings] exactly taking into consideration the increasing importance of rankings among future students, and the fact that rankings can influence financial decisions of government bodies responsible for higher education. Concretely, IREG Observatory is finalizing a methodology and procedures for audit system of university rankings. The “IREG audit” will be carried out upon those producing rankings and assess their rankings against the highest methodology standards. Those rankings that will pass the IREG audit will be entitled to use “IREG Recognized” label. Such audits will become an important force to give both the public and academia confidence that higher education rankings are being conducted using high standards. The audit criteria of university rankings will be based foremost on the Berlin Principles on Ranking of Higher Education Institutions which were established by IREG in Berlin in 2006.
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