But, the landscape in which HE operates today has become extremely complex there are many more demands and many constituencies which have an impact on and a voice in shaping higher education’s role and purpose.

Its success (or failure) is integral to and a powerful indicator of the knowledge-producing and talent-attracting capacity of nations. This is because higher education is a global game. The emergence of global rankings coincided with the acceleration of globalisation at the turn of the millennium. How did that happen and why are rankings becoming increasingly important?

Global rankings have decisively shifted the nature of the conversation around higher education to emphasise universities’ performance in knowledge economies.