Abstract
This chapter discusses the recent tendency to localize the rankings and indicators on competitiveness, innovation, and higher education. The localization of ranking comes in the form of regional and city rankings, challenging the dominant imaginary assuming global comparability of similar units or the state-centric understanding of world order. Nevertheless, conceptually or methodologically regional and local alternatives hardly depart from the global indicators. Local variants often rely on familiar data sources and established data producers. They reproduce the old imagery of competition, but now on the city level of actorhood. In fact, due to the lack of urban data, many city rankings on innovation make use of national data employed by the established global indicators.
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Notes
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There are also assessments on quality of governance addressing specific regions such as Africa and Latin America or groups of countries in transformation (by World Economic Forum, Bertelsmann Foundation and Mo Ibrahim Foundation).
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In 2016, benchmarking against other European countries and regional neighbors was done against the following non-EU countries: Switzerland, Israel, Iceland, Norway, Serbia, Turkey, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, and Ukraine.
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2thinknow [http://www.2thinknow.com/].
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Since October 2016, the unit responsible for the index, Intellectual Property & Science has no longer been part of Thomson and Reuters group, and the Top 100 Global Innovators Report is now produced by Clarivate Analytics, though the index seems largely unchanged (Clarivate Analytics 2016; Thomson Reuters 2016).
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SCImago Ranking [http://www.scimagoir.com/rankings.php].
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Such indexes include Oklahoma Innovation Index, Accenture innovation index, NYCEDC Innovation Index, GiveEasy Innovation Index, The Index of the Massachusetts Innovation Economy, California Green Innovation Index, Streetwise City Innovation Index, Kalypso/David Eccles School of Business Innovation Index, Forbes—The World’s Most Innovative Companies, Boston Consulting Group—The Most Innovative Companies, and UK Innovation Index.
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“One hundred years ago only two out of ten of the world’s population were living in urban areas. By the middle of the twenty-first century, seven out of ten people will be living in cities. Already global business is beginning to plan strategy from a city, rather than a country, perspective. Understandably so: well over half of the world’s population lives in cities, generating more than 80 per cent of global GDP. Standard population projections show that virtually all global growth over the next 30 years will be in urban areas. The number of people living in the world’s cities is growing by nearly 60 m every year” (The Economist Intelligence Unit 2013, 2) (emphasis added).
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“More than half of the world’s population lives in cities, and by 2025 that number is projected to reach 60 percent. As the world urbanizes, A.T. Kearney’s Global Cities 2015 takes a look at the growing influence of cities across six world regions” (A.T. Kearney 2015, 1).
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“Since 2005, the World Economic Forum has based its competitiveness analysis on the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI), a comprehensive tool that measures the microeconomic and macroeconomic foundations of national competitiveness. Recognizing that competitiveness may also be analyzed at other geographical levels, the Forum […] has engaged in a parallel strand of work to analyze the drivers of competitiveness at the level of the city” (World Economic Forum 2014a, 4) (emphases added).
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“As leaders look for ways to make their economies more competitive and to achieve higher levels of growth, prosperity and social progress, cities are typically identified as playing a crucial role. Today, more than half of the world’s population lives in urban areas ranging from midsize cities to mega-agglomerations, and the number of city dwellers worldwide keeps rising” (World Economic Forum 2014b, preface) (emphases added).
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“Major cities around the world today are caught up in intense and complex competition. The stakes in these processes of global inter-city interaction are extremely high” (The Mori Memorial Foundation 2015, preface) (emphases added).
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“For many decades, A.T. Kearney has focused on globalization opportunities, with a wide range of capabilities to inform business and government strategies, including our Global Business Policy Council, Global Retail Development Index, and the Foreign Direct Investment Confidence Index. A common theme that runs through these capabilities and both the Global Cities Index and the Outlook is an increasing appetite for expansion and investment at the market level—often defined by city boundaries—rather than at the country level. This trend can be tracked by the growing availability of city-level data” (A.T. Kearney 2015, 6) (emphases added).
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For instance, the Financial Maturity score in EUI index is based on a compiled data from other resources (Leff and Petersen 2015).
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The six functions are Economy, Research and Development, Cultural Interaction, Liveability, Environment, and Accessibility.
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The EU Regional Competitiveness Index 2016: indicators description [http://ec.europa.eu/regional_policy/sources/docgener/work/rci2016_indicators.xls].
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Also the Firm Activities indicator group contains a Web of Science–based indicator: Public–private copublications per million population.
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The Leiden Ranking uses Thomson Reuters/Clarivate Analytics’ Web of Science publication data, as does the Shanghai ranking. The SCImago, THE, and QS rankings use Elsevier’s Scopus publication database.
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2thinknow Data Types, [http://www.citybenchmarkingdata.com/data-types].
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2thinknow Data Types, [http://www.citybenchmarkingdata.com/data-types].
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2thinknow FAQs, [http://www.citybenchmarkingdata.com/faqs/2905].
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2thinknow FAQs, [http://www.citybenchmarkingdata.com/faqs/2905].
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Methodology: Top 100 Innovative Universities 2016 [http://www.reuters.com/most-innovative-universities-2016/methodology].
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Thomson Reuters Europe’s Most Innovative Universities [http://www.reuters.com/most-innovative-universities-europe].
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Thomson Reuters Asia’s Most Innovative Universities [http://www.reuters.com/most-innovative-universities-asia-2016].
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As discussed in Chap. 5, there has been a recent shift in the global indicators on good governance, where the so-called second-generation indicators are challenging rankings (Knack, Kugler, and Manning 2003; Trapnell 2011). The second-generation indicators are characterized by four criteria: (1) transparency of data sources, (2) availability of data, (3) quality and accuracy of data and measurements and (4) specificity of indicators. Moreover, the second-generation indicators often favor nonaggregated presentation of results as opposed to rankings (see previous chapter).
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It is noteworthy that since the publication of the Actionable Governance Indicators the World Bank has emphasized disaggregation in comparative assessments (see above).
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Even within the US higher education system (Cohen and Kisker 2010, 435–442), there are many tiers of institutions. Only one of these tiers (public and private research institutions) closely fits the model of higher education represented in the global rankings, where the Ivy League institutions are emphasized.
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Thomson Reuters Europe’s Most Innovative Universities [http://www.reuters.com/most-innovative-universities-europe].
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Thomson Reuters Asia’s Most Innovative Universities [http://www.reuters.com/most-innovative-universities-asia-2016].
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Erkkilä, T., Piironen, O. (2018). From Global to Local: Regional- and City-Level Alternatives to Global Rankings. In: Rankings and Global Knowledge Governance. Palgrave Studies in Global Higher Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68941-8_6
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