U-Multirank’s medium-term future has been secured. The ranking, which its creators claim isn’t one, was developed by Germany’s Centre for Higher Education Development (CHE) in collaboration with the Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies (CHEPS) at the University of Twente and the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS), both located in the Netherlands, as well as the Fundación Conocimiento y Desarrollo (FCYD) in Spain. So far, the ranking has been funded mainly by an EU grant (2013-2017), which, however, is about to run out.
The European Commission will continue to subsidise U-Multirank through its Erasmus+ Programme until 2019, as CHE reported now. The Bertelsmann Foundation, which already played a role as a shareholder in CHE, will now become a funder as well. The Banco Santander from Spain, as well as the Santander Group (of universities) will also provide financial and moral support.
U-Multirank, which developed out of an initiative started during the French Council Presidency in 2008, is an alternative approach to comparing university performance. Its multi-dimensional methodology compares the performance of currently some 1,500 universities worldwide by means of a wide and varied set of indicators. It categorises universities in five categories, from A (very good) to E (weak). Next to producing a ready-made ranking, it also allows users to create their own one, by choosing between the different indicators on offer and by deciding on the weighting of each one.
Higher education institutions wishing to participate in the 2019 round of U-Multirank can express their interest by emailing info@umultirank.org.
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