Summary of the second Ranking Webinar (22 February 2021)
The second part of our Ranking-webinar series discussed the ranking of Hungarian higher education institutions in global and subject rankings. This series aims to strengthen common thinking on rankings – an important milestone of this will be the International Ranking Conference in 19-21. May 2021.
Dr. György Fábri’s presentation discussed two important issues. The first topic discussed where the real competition for Hungarian universities is, whether the issue of comparing the dominant North American universities and Hungarian institutions is realistic. In the presenter’s view, it is important to have a proper comparability between domestic and foreign universities, for which it is worth choosing a reference circle that includes universities operating in similar social, cultural and scientific environments. For this reason, the professional workshop of ELTE Social Communication Research Group considers it important to make an annual comparison, which includes the analysis of nearly half a hundred institutions in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as in Austria and Finland. The other question, expressed by Dr. György Fábri in his presentation, discussed the position of Hungarian universities in the rankings and their comparison with reference institutions. Although the approaches of the most important global rankings differ, it can be said that domestic institutions reach mostly the same positions in these rankings. In recent years, the majority of Hungarian higher education institutions are facing a deteriorating ranking position, the primary reason for which is the poor performance in publication indicators. In the rapporteur’s view, there is no reality under the current conditions of a change in international positions which have been “frozen” in recent years.
The presentation of Dóra Czirfusz discussed the positions of Hungarian universities in international subject rankings. In her opinion, it is not possible to talk about these rankings in general, because, for example, different rankings have different disciplinary classifications and work with different methodology. In international subject rankings 13 Hungarian higher education institutions have gained some position in recent years – and year after year, more and more Hungarian names return to these rankings. At the same time, most Hungarian universities appear in the middle or last third, with a few exceptions (for example, CEU is among the top 100 in the field of social sciences and Liszt Ferenc University of Music is among the top 50). In her presentation, Dóra Czirfusz dealt in detail with the ranking of life sciences and medicine, in which the Finnish and Austrian institutions are among the best ones, but three Hungarian institutions can also be found on the list.
In his speech, Mózes Székely, head of the department, presented the areas in which the Ministry of Innovation and Technology is thinking and in which areas it is preparing projects in connection with the rankings. One such area is the digitization of higher education institutions, and a project aimed at ranking the attitudes of universities towards sport is under preparation. The latter would be more of a special, information-specific ranking. In addition, a specific ranking analyzing the institutions of the V4 countries began.
In their comments, participants highlighted the growing number of thematic rankings that capture a particular area of higher education. An example is THE Impact Ranking, which is linked to the UN Sustainable Development Goals collaboration. There have been a number of contributions on how rankings can be optimized, for example by providing accurate affiliations in publications. This is a particularly prominent issue when institutions go through name changes, which is a recent topic in Hungary.
Dr. habil György Fábri (1964) is an habilitated associate professor (Institute of research on Adult Education and Knowledge Management, Faculty of Education and Psychology of Eötvös Loránd University), head of the Social Communication Research Group. Areas of research: university philosophy, sociology of higher education and science, science communication, social communication, church sociology. His monograph was published on the transformation of Hungarian higher education during the change of regime (1992 Wien) and on university rankings (2017 Budapest). He has edited several scientific journals, and his university courses and publications cover communication theory, university philosophy, science communication, social representation, media and social philosophy, ethics, and church sociology.
Mr. Degli Esposti is Full Professor at the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Deputy Rector Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna, Dean of Biblioteca Universitaria di Bologna, Head of Service for the health and safety of people in the workplace, President of the Alma Mater Foundation and Delegate for Rankings.
Ben joined QS in 2002 and has led institutional performance insights function of QS since its emergence following the early success of the QS World University Rankings®. His team is, today, responsible for the operational management of all major QS research projects including the QS World University Rankings® and variants by region and subject. Comprising over 60 people in five international locations, the team also operate a widely adopted university rating system – QS Stars – and a range of commissioned business intelligence and strategic advisory services.Ben has travelled to over 50 countries and spoken on his research in almost 40. He has personally visited over 50 of the world’s top 100 universities amongst countless others and is a regular and sought after speaker on the conference circuit.Ben is married and has two sons; if he had any free time it would be spent reading, watching movies and skiing.
Anna Urbanovics is a PhD student at Doctoral School of Public Administration Sciences of the University of Public Service, and studies Sociology Master of Arts at the Corvinus University of Budapest. She is graduated in International Security Studies Master of Arts at the University of Public Service. She does research in Scientometrics and International Relations.
Dr. Mircea Dumitru is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Bucharest (since 2004). Rector of the University of Bucharest (since 2011). President of the European Society of Analytic Philosophy (2011 – 2014). Corresponding Fellow of the Romanian Academy (since 2014). Minister of Education and Scientific Research (July 2016 – January 2017). Visiting Professor at Beijing Normal University (2017 – 2022). President of the International Institute of Philosophy (2017 – 2020). President of Balkan Universities Association (2019 – 2020). He holds a PhD in Philosophy at Tulane University, New Orleans, USA (1998) with a topic in modal logic and philosophy of mathematics, and another PhD in Philosophy at the University of Bucharest (1998) with a topic in philosophy of language. Invited Professor at Tulsa University (USA), CUNY (USA), NYU (USA), Lyon 3, ENS Lyon, University of Helsinki, CUPL (Beijing, China), Pekin University (Beijing, China). Main area of research: philosophical logic, metaphysics, and philosophy of language. Main publications: Modality and Incompleteness (UMI, Ann Arbor, 1998); Modalitate si incompletitudine, (Paideia Publishing House, 2001, in Romanian; the book received the Mircea Florian Prize of the Romanian Academy); Logic and Philosophical Explorations (Humanitas, Bucharest, 2004, in Romanian); Words, Theories, and Things. Quine in Focus (ed.) (Pelican, 2009); Truth (ed.) (Bucharest University Publishing House, 2013); article on the Philosophy of Kit Fine, in The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, the Third Edition, Robert Audi (ed.) (Cambridge University Press, 2015), Metaphysics, Meaning, and Modality. Themes from Kit Fine (ed.) (Oxford University Press, forthcoming).
Since 1 February 2019 Minister Palkovics as Government Commissioner has been responsible for the coordination of the tasks prescribed in Act XXIV of 2016 on the promulgation of the Agreement between the Government of Hungary and the Government of the People’s Republic of China on the development, implementation and financing of the Hungarian section of the Budapest-Belgrade Railway Reconstruction Project.
He is the past President of the Health and Health Care Economics Section of the Hungarian Economics Association.
Based in Berlin, Zuzanna Gorenstein is Head of Project of the German Rectors’ Conference (HRK) service project “International University Rankings” since 2019. Her work at HRK encompasses the conceptual development and implementation of targeted advisory, networking, and communication measures for German universities’ ranking officers. Before joining the HRK, Zuzanna Gorenstein herself served as ranking officer of Freie Universität Berlin.
His books on mathematical modeling of chemical, biological, and other complex systems have been published by Princeton University Press, MIT Press, Springer Publishing house. His new book RANKING: The Unwritten Rules of the Social Game We All Play was published recently by the Oxford University Press, and is already under translation for several languages.
