Comparative study of academic leadership solutions for civic engagement: Role of research strategy and academic rankings

Abstract

The third mission of the universities is related to their contribution to the society development. In the latest years, a shift in the development of higher education institutions has been observed from the Triple helix paradigm where the need of becoming entrepreneurial was a central point in the relational system of university-industry-government, to the Quadruple helix, where research and education in higher education get connected with business, public administration and civil society. Therefore, what higher education do and what can they do are two separate sets of actions. There are national systems, where higher education institutions are crucial units in the society development, and others, where they are still figuring out what and how societal engagement can be accomplished. In all cases, higher education institutions fight for better academic ranking position, connecting the ranking-based visibility with their reputation at a large scale. How much the current ranking methodologies reflect the need of more societal engagement of higher education institutions is a question which answer must be discovered. The main purpose of this paper is to reveal a direct connection between rankings and civic engagement and how academic leadership might support civic engagement becoming more visible in the higher education arena. The objectives of the paper are: to describe the academic leadership position towards civic engagement; to provide clarifications of how academic rankings could contribute to the civic engagement of higher education institutions; to propose a strategy of better connecting research with civic engagement of institutions. The methodology includes apart from the literature review and different case studies review, a questionnaire based research on the academic perceptions of the connection between research (more and more considered by academic rankings) and civic engagement. Main findings of the research are that the role of rankings is much higher than providing leagues and tables; rankings can stimulate higher education institutions to develop civic engagement strategies; ranking institutions are not only providers of information to stakeholders, but also important drivers for higher education institutions, which looking for more visibility became devoted to particular strategies, like more aware of civic engagement.