LERU kraakt U-Map

Nieuws | de redactie

6 juli 2010 | U-Map, het Europese classificatieproject van Frans van Vught, ligt onder vuur. De invloedrijke League of European Research Universities (LERU) vreest dat de risico’s van het project - zoals “the potential for game playing when reputations for excellence are at stake”- zwaarder wegen dan de mogelijke pluspunten.

Meting van activiteit, niet van kwaliteit

LERU is een belangenorganisatie vanonderzoeksuniversiteiten als de UvA, UU, Leiden, Oxford enCambridge. In een nieuwe publicatie leveren zij zware, inhoudelijkekritiek op het classificeren van Europese universiteiten. “U-Mapis an attempt at classification describing thediversity of universities by mapping activities, not quality: itspurpose being transparency for stakeholders.”

LERU applauds the attempt to create U-Map as a description ofdiversity, but is less enthusiastic about U-Multirank, because ofproblems of data comparability, the potential for game playing whenreputations for excellence are at stake, and for the encouragementit gives to target proxies rather than underlying reality.

Eendimensionele lijstjes

Although the U-Multirank approach at least provides ameans of exemplifying diverse forms of excellence as an antidote tosingle monotonic lists, it is inevitable that its individualdimensions will be combined by others to create a single monotonictable of excellence, regardless of the strictures of itsauthors.

Whilst we accept that both the U-Map and the U-Multirank projectshave potential value, there are considerable difficulties anddangers which might outweigh the value of the projects.

U leest de volledige publicatie ‘University rankings:Diversity, Excellence and the European Initiative’ hier.