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Global rankings are creating a furore wherever or whenever they are published or mentioned. They have become a barometer of global competition measuring the knowledge-producing and talent-catching capacity of higher education institutions. These developments are injecting a new competitive dynamic into higher education, nationally and globally, and encouraging a debate about its role and purpose. As such, politicians regularly refer to them as a measure of their nation's economic strength and aspirations, universities use them to help set or define targets mapping their performance against the various metrics, while academics use rankings to bolster their own professional reputation and status. Based on an international survey (2006) and extensive interviews in Germany, Australia and Japan (2008), this paper provides a comparative analysis of the impact and influence of rankings on higher education and stakeholders, and describes institutional experiences and responses. It then explores how rankings are influencing national policy and shaping institutional decision making and behaviour. Some changes form part of the broader modernisation agenda, improving performance and public accountability, while others are viewed as perverse. Their experiences illustrate that policy does matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on an analysis of policy contexts in several OECD countries, this article examines the rapidly changing policy environment in Japan exemplified by the 2004 transformation of national universities into "incorporated" entities. The role of universities in the knowledge society is examined in light of the emergence of new research and learning systems, conditioned by forces of both globalisation and regionalisation. This historic legal change affects state-university relations in a number of distinctive ways. It is generally assumed that universities will find themselves in a more competitive environment accompanied by cuts in public funding and that there will, therefore, be a growing need to find external sources of funding as well as more efficient and responsive management approaches. The Japanese Government is further opening the higher education system to society and industry, which has resulted in new forms of competition and collaboration among local and global strategic partnerships. The impact of these new relationships can be perceived in four principal dimensions: economy, human resource, governance and community. Based on the conceptual notion of "constructed advantage," this paper highlights spatial knowledge networking capabilities between institutions/agents at local, national and global levels. Universities are formulating new strategies in networking knowledge, whilst future state policy and evaluation mechanisms warrant close investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]