Rankings and their impact for French universities

by Stephanie BraudeauLast Friday 3^rd December 2010, the QS Intelligence Unit was represented at a conference organised by the group L’Etudiant/Educpros about rankings.

Name of the event

:“ Classements et Rankings: Que vont-ils encore changer dans le paysage de l’enseignement supérieur ?’’ Rankings : What will they change in the higher education scene?

Audience

: French and Belgian universities, Business Schools, engineering schools, journalists and organizations specialised in the higher education sector.

Key themes

: Rankings and their stakes and impact, strategies chosen by universities and the type of communication to adopt regarding rankings.QSIU Research Manager Baerbel Eckelmann was among the key note speakers during a workshop called ‘Stakes and impact of rankings’ where she explained to the audience how QSIU collects data, the weightings and the importance of indicators. QS Marketing and Communications Director Isabelle Pasmantier and Junior Analyst Stephanie Braudeau also attended the conference to help answer questions.
Besides the increasing international student population and the link with rankings, what emerged from this gathering of academics and higher education experts is the fact that rankings may be a way for French universities to develop their own internal evaluation tool. Rankings can help them to know where their strengths and weaknesses are.However, a major concern has been raised regarding the lack of a formal institution in France that gathers global data from universities and schools, unlike the UK which has the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA). Having an organization doing this work would help universities to unify definitions of statistics.If you are a French reader, you can access to the keynote speeches during the conference by various academic experts that have been Tweeted by L'Etudiant Journalist Sylvie Lecherbonnier.http://www.educpros.fr/conference/ranking/programme.html