Funding, is it key for standing out in the university rankings?

This paper studies the influence of funding on the position reached by the top 300 universities (institutions) of the Quaccarelly Symond World University Ranking 2018. Geographical location, ownership nature (public/private), size and financial resources of these top universities are examined. Our a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Scientometrics 2019-11, Vol.121 (2), p.771-792
Main Authors: Benito, Mónica, Gil, Pilar, Romera, Rosario
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Colleges & universities
Computer Science
Funding
Geographical distribution
Geographical locations
Information Storage and Retrieval
Library Science
Ranking
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Summary:This paper studies the influence of funding on the position reached by the top 300 universities (institutions) of the Quaccarelly Symond World University Ranking 2018. Geographical location, ownership nature (public/private), size and financial resources of these top universities are examined. Our analysis shows that public funding become critical up to 84% of these top universities, especially for the European universities. Moreover, funding explains up to 51% of the variability of the positions attained by the universities in the ranking. The influence of funding in the improvement of the universities’ ranking score is also studied. We provide evidence that the top 100 universities double the funds of the universities located in positions 101–200 and triple those of the universities in positions 201–300 of the ranking. This is an exceptional exercise in relating university funding and excellence that usually are examined for university systems (countries) not for universities themselves.
ISSN:0138-9130
1588-2861
DOI:10.1007/s11192-019-03202-z