During the semester break, Australia’s higher education sector rejoiced as three Australian universities — Melbourne, Sydney, and UNSW — broke into the world’s top 20 in the latest edition of Quacquerelli Symond’s (QS) World University Rankings, with Sydney joint 19th with archrival UNSW. Now, as we return for Semester Two, it’s plastered everywhere – topped with a brand new lion statue to boot.
How true is this?
In research, global rankings like QS generally do a good job at gauging research excellence, with research output afforded significant weighting in QS and Times Higher Education (THE). As a result, academics at “top” institutions frequently win sought-after grants, publish in renowned journals, secure industry income, and take top spots in national research exercises. In this respect, Sydney’s universities and Australia’s Group of Eight pull well above our population’s weight.
QS leans heavily towards research and academic reputation, measured by data fed from surveys circulated to academics other than one’s own institution. As Jeffrey Khoo put it in 2020, this is an “essentially subjective measure of sentiment”.
Today, the same flaws persist — and, in some ways, they are worse than before. From 2023 onwards, QS will see weighting on faculty-to-student ratios slashed by a third. Yet, this metric is where both USyd and UNSW perform the worst out of any university in QS’ top 50 – outdone only by Monash – mirroring the two’s consistently poor showing in student satisfaction surveys. Both universities, badly affected by years-long wage theft and managerial intransigence, have undermined academic morale for a while. Under this lens, QS’ heavy research focus, perversely, may provide a disincentive to teaching excellence in Australia in favour of the publish-or-perish mentality.
Performances Metrics | Weights in 2024 Edition | Change from previous editions |
Academic Reputation | 30% | 10% deducted |
Employer Reputation | 15% | 5% added |
Faculty Student Ratio | 10% | 10% deducted |
Citations per Faculty | 20% | No change |
International Faculty Ratio | 5% | No change |
International Student Ratio | 5% | No change |
International Research Network | 5% | New |
Employment Outcomes | 5% | New |
Sustainability | 5% | New |
Source: Quacquerelli Symonds; Weighting of metrics used by Quacquerelli Symonds (QS).
University of Sydney rebounded heavily in five areas, including three of QS’ newly introduced metrics — sustainability, social impact, and employment outcomes.
Sustainability assesses institutions’ commitment to net zero, equity, and social inclusion. What worked in the University’s favour is a public investments report claiming that its absolute carbon emissions fell by more than 80% between 2010 and 2020 (as calculated by its sustainability consultant Mercer) in its investment portfolios. Additionally, last year’s deal with Red Energy to power Camperdown and Darlington entirely through renewable energy likely also played very well with QS. To top it off, actions undertaken by student groups such as the SRC Environment Collective and the USU’s Enviro Fair contribute directly to USyd’s high standing.
Now, here’s where it gets murky. QS’ methodology for its sustainability metrics only considers “whether a university holds membership in officially-recognised climate action or sustainability groups”, “has a publicly available sustainability strategy and energy emissions report,” and a commitment to net zero. Subsequently, as long as the University touts a vague commitment and can cobble together an environmental strategic plan, QS is satisfied. There is no uniform test or a set timeline for net zero that institutions are measured against, rendering QS’ sustainability metric largely a set of empty promises with no accountability mechanism.
Then, there’s the sheer size of holdings in fossil fuel investments that USyd holds. By the end of 2021, University of Sydney held over $500 million in various funds that invests in major oil and gas players such as Santos and Whitehaven Coal. Just last week, Honi revealed that USyd, after divesting from some fossil fuel holdings, bought a combined $10 million worth of shares in mining and gas giant BHP, Rio Tinto, Shell and British Petroleum (BP) in 2022.
In what world does that make our university truly responsible to the environment?
To make matters worse, Mercer Superannuation is currently in hot water with ASIC for alleged greenwashing and misleading the public over its clients’ fossil fuel investments. If QS considers hundreds of millions of dollars in funds tied to fossil fuel companies to be a job well done, then that’s profoundly disturbing for our environment. At best, this is another egregious example of greenwashing. At worst, QS is giving universities free rein to game metrics to their advantage.
Inclusion, student gender ratios, and diversity policies (such as Disability Inclusion Action Plans) are also factors in USyd’s rise. With the USU’s Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP) and Disability Inclusion Action Plans (DIAP) in the works, we can expect the University to fare well in next year’s edition. However, these new measures also suffer from a dearth of any enforceable targets — such as recruitment rate of disabled academics — preferring the quantity of diversity policies over an in-depth look into whether universities have attained their promises.
QS’ rationale behind the changes is that students demand better governance from the world’s top universities. Yet, too much of QS’ metrics only scrape the surface of what makes a genuinely responsible university. The flip side is it gives our institutions an excuse to further sideline what students have to say on the ground, cost of living pressures and academic morale.
There is much more to be said about the fallibility of university league tables like QS. They are, in a way, a reflection of the deeply problematic consumerist corporatism that tertiary education has trapped itself in. At the status quo, institutional behaviour is sadly too often driven by these rankings, with universities’ reputational risk assessment and managerial KPIs permanently wedded to them. Others resort to skirting the boundaries of what’s allowed and, in a few cases, cheating their way to the top — leading to the student experience being muffled. Instead, universities must be committed to the common good of students, academics and society.