Is Inequality Among Universities Increasing? Gini Coefficients and the Elusive Rise of Elite Universities |
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| Authors: | Willem Halffman Loet Leydesdorff |
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| Institution: | (1) Department of Philosophy and Science Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen—Faculty of Science, P.O. Box 9010, 6500 GL Nijmegen, The Netherlands;(2) Amsterdam School of Communications Research (ASCoR), University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands |
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| Abstract: | One of the unintended consequences of the New Public Management (NPM) in universities is often feared to be a division between
elite institutions focused on research and large institutions with teaching missions. However, institutional isomorphisms
provide counter-incentives. For example, university rankings focus on certain output parameters such as publications, but
not on others (e.g., patents). In this study, we apply Gini coefficients to university rankings in order to assess whether
universities are becoming more unequal, at the level of both the world and individual nations. Our results do not support
the thesis that universities are becoming more unequal. If anything, we predominantly find homogenisation, both at the level
of the global comparisons and nationally. In a more restricted dataset (using only publications in the natural and life sciences),
we find increasing inequality for those countries, which used NPM during the 1990s, but not during the 2000s. Our findings
suggest that increased output steering from the policy side leads to a global conformation to performance standards. |
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