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How to rise above rankings and take charge of your own university global narrative

How to rise above rankings and take charge of your own university global narrative

Author:

Justin Shaw, Chief Higher Education Consultant at Communications Management and IC Global Fellow.

Is there any industry that is more self-obsessed with comparative performance than higher education? With the possible exception of football clubs (where performance against rivals fluctuates constantly based on more immediate results), I don’t think so.

The whole ecosystem of global university rankings (in particular) has now become so intense that dedicated resources (roles and teams) have been created within individual institutions to examine, produce and game-play their data input so that they can try to achieve the most favourable outcomes and break through the different performance tiers (with all eyes on breaching the barriers to the global top 100).

University strategies now frequently set rankings level positions as part of their KPIs. Leadership, international offices, and marcomms teams scrutinise their rankings and assess what they need to do to improve against their comparator set. Not a sector conference goes by without a session devoted to rankings. Rankings are here to stay – and despite many attempts by individual universities to withdraw or “non submit” over the years, these avoidance decisions are often reversed by the subsequent university leadership.

June has been a pretty busy month for annual global rankings – with both the QS World University Rankings and the Times Higher Education Impact Rankings being released. Congratulations, by the way, to the University of Alberta, RWTH Aachen University and Københavns Universitet – University of Copenhagen who went from outside to inside the top 100 of the 2025 QS world-ranked universities and to Western Sydney University, The University of Manchester and University of Tasmania as among those leading the world for their impact in relation to the United Nations‘ SDGs.

The point of this blog is not to “rubbish the rankings” but to stress the ongoing case for an alternative approach to monitoring and managing global reputation – one that ensures universities are far more attuned to celebrating their own particular points of international difference and distinction.

When it comes to telling your own international story (or narrative) as a university, my analysis shows that universities are extremely safe and same-y. Most commonly, universities are using very broad and generalist statements to testify as to their international interests and standing – with common bravado of them being “one of the world’s leading international universities” and of “championing a global outlook”.

As to the underlining of their international credentials, universities tend to highlight similar ‘proof points’ – most commonly through data and numbers: their spin on global rankings performance; international student, staff and alumni numbers (and percentages of international representation on campus); campus locations or presence in particular non-UK locations; partnerships with other universities and institutions; and sources of international research funding.

Yet all universities are different and have points of difference – especially globally. No single university is exactly like another. This is where the sector needs to do better. There needs to be a more determined effort to capture, articulate and project this international individuality. I’ve seen some great examples.

Monash is excellent – see its global Change It narrative: as is the University of British Columbia with its In Service approach:

International Influencer Index

As part of our own work at The IC Global we’ve been supporting a university that has multi-global campus operations and partnerships to define a better and more unique international narrative. We have especially drilled down into how they do thingsand not just the usual case of what they provide and where they provide it.

We have been able to contrast the underlying culture, spirit and ethos of this university, set against the way in which other universities tend to go about behaving and operating. This is a vastly refreshing way of exploring the detailed (and very human) nature of international partnership working in order to point to genuine and authentic approaches. We’ve been able to do this because of our breadth of experience of working with many universities across many cultures and drawing from across various parts of the world.

Alongside this, we have also been devising a new way of monitoring and measuring the international reputation of universities – an approach that is essentially based on recognising that every university has their own separate set of circumstances, cultural drivers, provision, interests and influencers.

We call this the International Influencer Index.

The latter point (on influencers) is really important. Sometimes these influencers will overlap with other globally-competing universities but, because universities have different subject interests, research expertise, localised presence and markets, they are more likely to be tailored to a particular institution. This is where the common global rankings methodology falls down – it is a one-size-fits-all model that is based on a simplified and outdated notion of what a university is and does, and (in my view) discourages sector disruption and innovation. That’s why many privately-managed mission-specific universities or niche subject-specialist players are discounted or denied from inclusion in such rankings.

The answer to how to define a different reputational pathway is in taking these four steps for your university:

1. Defining your own university’s international values, strengths, standout features and capabilities – what is refreshing, special and different?

2. Identifying who (in terms of organisations and post-holders) is most relevant and important for influencing your own institution’s success.

3. Testing out the perceptions and the resonance of the former with the latter.

4. Capturing metrics on key issues that impact on reputation such as the university in question’s ability to project its narrative, to communicate and to engage with others, to work as a global partner, to encourage advocacy and referrals, and to embed knowledge of its international offer and expertise.

Our work in shaping the International Influencer Index is also about understanding how people form their judgements and opinions of different universities – and not just taking for granted that a state of reputation (if there is such a thing) is permanently fixed and immovable. I know from my 34 years of working in and with universities that views can shift (negatively and positively) pretty quickly. What is really vital is understanding the triggers and levers that inform these viewpoints and what sources (and reference points) are being most frequently turned to – and why.

Many people will have heard me talk at global higher education conferences about how universities need to both “lean in” and “stand out”. By this I mean that they need to do both things: keep playing the rankings game and citing the traditional comparative factors (all the usual stuff that serves all universities) while also working away at projecting differences and distinctiveness. At present I’d say the split of effort here is weighted heavily (80%+) towards leaning in.