Brussels. 18 December. The public has the right to the independent, outside opinion on higher education. Rankings are a source of such independent information. While rankings popularity has been steadily growing, some universities find it difficult to accept the idea of outside assessment. This is one of the reasons why IREG Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellence published a revised IREG Guidelines for Stakeholders of Academic Rankings.

IREG Observatory believes that academic rankings are one of the tools for improving higher education by providing transparency about the performance of higher education institutions. The IREG Guidelines are intended to provide information on the importance and meaning of academic rankings to their stakeholders ranging from students and their parents through university managers to governments.

The purpose of the IREG Guidelines is to provide recommendations for uses and applications of rankings by potential interested parties, including students and parents, institutions of higher education, policymakers, quality assurance and funding organizations, employers, and the media. Specific recommendations have been formulated for each group of stakeholders. They reflect the potential as well as limitations of rankings as transparency tools.

The academic community has the right to assess the quality of research and teaching through its own evaluations methods based mostly on peer review equally, the public is entitled to the outside but fair appraisal of the quality of universities where knowledge is generated and passed on to students and the society for their benefit, but at their cost as well. The IREG Guidelines explain the rules that should be observed in this two-way process.

“These Guidelines are intended to improve quality of communication on rankings, assure reliability of information, and give rankings users a tool that is functional and trustworthy” – said Waldemar Siwinski, president of IREG Observatory. “This is especially important in the context of the recent ranking phobia expressed by part of the academic community, mostly in Europe. I am convinced that dialogue and better knowledge about rankings will be beneficial for all higher education stakeholders”.

IREG Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellence is an international organization of rankers, analysts of rankings, and rectors of universities. IREG has been active since 2002, in 2009 it was formally registered as an not-for-profit organization in Brussels, Belgium. Website: ireg-observatory.org