Times Higher Education says it is "developing a new global university ranking that aims to measure institutions’ success in delivering the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals." This is, of course, just what the world needs.
THE says that the first edition of the ranking will include metrics based on 11 SDGs, but the long-term goal is to measure performance against all 17 goals. Data will be collected from universities and Elsevier is to produce an overall ranking of universities based on the best four or five SDGs per university (whatever that means). Individual rankings of the universities that are best achieving the 11 SDGs will also be published. The ranking will be open to all accredited universities that teach undergraduates, and the first edition will be launched at THE’s Innovation and Impact Summit in South Korea in April 2019. Data collection will begin this autumn.
Getting appropriate metrics won't be easy. Those currently being explored include the number of graduates in health professions, the proportion of women in senior academic positions, and policies and practices regarding employment security. An initial draft of the metrics will be developed in partnership with Vertigo Ventures, an organisation that works with leading research institutions globally to help them identify, capture and report the impact of their work.
The latest details are here.
EAUC is supporting all this nonsense and there will be webinars to inform those of an unwary and credulous disposition highlighting (by a happy coincidence) "how [the EAUC] activities you are already undertaking can contribute such as the SDG Accord, Sustainability Leadership Scorecard and Green Gown Awards." Clearly EAUC is well on the way to winning its own Green Gown award for self-promotion.
If you have the stomach for this horror show, you can find out more here.
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