A Multicriteria Goal Programming Model for Ranking Universities

This paper proposes the use of a goal programming model for the objective ranking of universities. This methodology has been successfully used in other areas to analyze the performance of firms by focusing on two opposite approaches: (a) one favouring those performance variables that are aligned with the central tendency of the majority of the variables used in the measurement of the performance, and (b) an alternative one that favours those different, singular, or independent performance variables. Our results are compared with the ranking proposed by two popular World University Rankings, and some insightful differences are outlined. We show how some top-performing universities occupy the best positions regardless of the approach followed by the goal programming model, hence confirming their leadership. In addition, our proposal allows for an objective quantification of the importance of each variable in the performance of universities, which could be of great interest to decision-makers.

Automated summary

This paper proposes the use of a goal programming model for the objective ranking of universities, showing differences compared to popular World University Rankings. Additionally, the proposal allows for an objective quantification of the importance of each variable in the performance of universities.