Entrepreneurial university indicators in global university rankings

Abstract

The nature, purpose and ways of work of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) are fundamentally changing. A new role of transforming knowledge and research discoveries into social and economic development known as ‘third mission’ is emerging as an important pillar of HEIs fabric. Against the backdrop of this major transformation, this paper attempts to evaluate to what extent third mission activities and outcomes are reflected in the global university performance measurement metrics. Eight prominent global rankings are evaluated through a framework of characteristics of an entrepreneurial university. The analysis shows that third mission activities are only scarcely represented in the rankings, with a focus on a limited spectrum of entrepreneurial activities. The analysis also revealed that there is a tendency to focus on output-based measures of third mission, while overlooking the key activities and systems universities put in place to nurture an entrepreneurial attitude. Based on our subjective classification of ranking indicators, we propose new indicators that could be developed to achieve a better approximation of the third mission activities.