Björn Brembs

Around 2005, German politicians decided on a plan to circumvent a newly
created amendment to the German constitution that prevents federal funds
from supporting state-owned institutions such as universities. Given the
unanimous support of R&D among federal parties and the booming economy,
federal politicians only needed some way to frame the plan that would
not immediately call state politicians to action and challenge the law
in a constitutional court\*.

The result of these deliberations was a PR stunt they dubbed the
"excellence initiative", a neoliberal scheme purporting to bring
much-needed competition to a way too egalitarian (and vastly
underfunded) university landscape. Not [unlike in other
areas](https://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/apr/15/neoliberalism-ideology-problem-george-monbiot)
where neoliberalism rules with the accompanying wishful thinking that
competition will magically make everything a better place, the German
university system today knows only one class of winners in a sea of
losers: administrations.

[Employment
statistics](https://bjoern.brembs.net/2015/01/booming-university-administrations/)
show that administrative staff increased by 17% from 2005 to 2012, while
permanent scientist positions increased only by 0.04%. Total teaching
staff did not match the increase in students of 25% and the precariously
employed scientists increased by a whopping 50%: for every permanent
scientific position, 10 fixed term positions were created, increasing
the already unhealthy competition among the academic precariat to insane
levels.

Even when trying to evaluate the scientific effects of the initiative,
the data come up short. A recent [independent
analysis](https://www.nature.com/news/germany-claims-success-for-elite-universities-drive-1.18312)
by Nature Publishing Group revealed that the increased scientific
performance of the "excellent" universities was matched by a
corresponding increase in the "non-excellent" universities which did not
receive these funds.

In summary, the available data indicate that the "Excellence Initiative"
was without any tangible effect scientifically, worsened job prospects
to an extent that now only the intellectually challenged would pursue a
career in academia, exacerbated the [socioeconomic
drivers](https://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00291/full)
behind the replication crisis and bloated administrations.

This year, it was decided to extend this catastrophe for German
universities.

Slowly, resistance is forming. There now is a
[petition](https://www.openpetition.de/petition/online/fuer-gute-forschung-und-lehre-argumente-gegen-die-exzellenzinitiative)
that everyone should sign who wants to stop neoliberal ideologies from
continuing to poison academia, no matter in what country. If we can stop
this madness in Germany, there is hope it can be stopped in other
countries as well.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

\* This is my recollection of the public account of the circumstances
leading up to the Excellence Initiative as it was concordantly presented
by the following state and federal politicians, speaking at the GAIN
Meeting in Boston in
[2010](https://gain-network.org/file_depot/0-10000000/10000-20000/16468/folder/97126/GAIN-Tagung+Programm+31.+August.pdf):

- Parlamentarischer Staatssekretär **Thomas Rachel**, MdB,
  Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung,
  [CDU]{style="text-decoration: underline;"}
- Staatsminister Dr. **Wolfgang Heubisch**, Bayerisches
  Staatsministerium für Wissenschaft, Forschung u. Kunst,
  [FDP]{style="text-decoration: underline;"}
- **Krista Sager**, MdB,
  [B90/Grüne]{style="text-decoration: underline;"}


Around 2005, German politicians decided on a plan to circumvent a newly created amendment to the German constitution that prevents federal funds from supporting state-owned institutions such as universities.

Data show “excellence initiative” was a massive failure – help stop it

Cameron Neylon

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[![ladder](http://cameronneylon.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/leiter_ladder4.jpg "ladder"){.zemanta-img-inserted
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Ladder (Wikipedia)
:::

The University Rankings season is upon us with the QS league table
released a few weeks back to much hand wringing here in the UK as many
science focussed institutions tumbled downwards. The fact that this was
due to a changed emphasis in counting humanities and social sciences
rather than any change at the universities themselves was at least
noted, although how much this was to excuse the drop rather than engage
with the issue is unclear.

At around the same time particle physicists and other "big science"
communities were up in arms as the Times Higher ranking, being released
this week, announced that [it would not count articles with huge numbers
of
authors](https://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/blog/world-university-rankings-blog-dealing-freak-research-papers).
Similar to the change in the QS rankings this would tend to disadvantage
institutions heavily invested in big science projects, although here the
effect would probably be more the signals being sent to communities than
a substantial effect on scores or rankings. In the context of these
shifts the decision of Japanese government to [apparently shut a large
proportion of Humanities and Social Sciences
departments](http://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2015/06/30/editorials/abes-ill-conceived-university-policy)
so as to focus on "areas for which society has strong needs"
is...interesting.

Also interesting was [the response of Phil
Baty](https://twitter.com/Phil_Baty/status/639462584559738880), the
editor of the THES Rankings to [John Butterworth's
objections](https://twitter.com/jonmbutterworth/status/639461360208904192)
on twitter.

> [@jonmbutterworth](https://twitter.com/jonmbutterworth)
> [@timeshighered](https://twitter.com/timeshighered) Would really
> welcome suggestions of how to attribute credit for 5k authors of 1
> paper? 5,000th each?
>
> --- Phil Baty (@Phil_Baty) [September 3,
> 2015](https://twitter.com/Phil_Baty/status/639462584559738880)

The response is interesting because it suggests there is a "right way"
to manage the "problem". The issue of course is rather the other way
around. There can be no right way to solve the problem independent of an
assessment of *what it is you are trying to assess*. Is it the
contribution of the university to the work? Is it some sense of the
influence that accrues to the institution for being associated with the
article? Is it the degree to which being involved will assist in gaining
additional funding?

This, alongside the shifts up and down the QS rankings, illustrates the
fundamental problem of rankings. They assume that what is being ranked
is obvious, when it is anything but. No linear ranking can ever capture
the multifaceted qualities of thousands of institutions but worse than
that the very *idea* of a ranking is built on the assumption that we
know what we're measuring.

Now you might ask why this matters. Surely these are just indicators,
mere inputs into decision making, even just a bit of amusing fun that
allows Cambridge to tweak the folks at Imperial this year? But there is
a problem. And that problem is that these ranking really show a vacuum
at the centre of our planning and decision making processes.

What is clear from the discussion above and the hand wringing over how
the rankings shift is that the question of what matters is not being
addressed. Rather it is swept under the carpet by [assuming there is
some conception of "quality" or "excellence" that is universally
shared](http://trianglesci.org/2015/05/15/the-qualities-of-quality/).
I've often said that for me when I hear the word "quality" it is a red
flag that means someone wants to avoid talking about *values.*

What matters in the production of High Energy Physics papers? What do we
care about? Is HEP something that all institutions should do or
something that should be focussed on a small number of places? But not
just HEP, but genomics, history, sociology...or perhaps chemistry. To
ask the question "how do we count physics the same as history" is to
make a basic category error. Just as it is to assume that one authorship
is the same as another.

If the question is was which articles in a year have the most influence,
and which institutions contributed, the answer would be very different
to the question of which institutions made the most contribution in
aggregate to global research outputs. Rankings ignore these questions
and try to muddle through with forced compromises like the ones we're
seeing in the THES case.

All that these rankings show is that the way you choose to value things
depends how you would (arbitrarily) rank them. Far more interesting is
the question of *what* the rankings tell us about what we really value,
and how hard that is in fact to measure.


Ladder (Wikipedia)  The University Rankings season is upon us with the QS league table released a few weeks back to much hand wringing here in the UK as many science focussed institutions tumbled downwards.

Messaggi di Rogue Scholar

Data show “excellence initiative” was a massive failure – help stop it

A league table by any means will smell just as rank