Assessing the legitimacy of HEIs' contributions to society The perspective of international rankings

Purpose - This paper aims to inquire about the types of measurements used by international university rankings and their connection to the higher education institutions' (HEIs) third mission activities, namely, the contribution to society. Design/methodology/approach - The paper is based on a review of literature and content analysis of nine international rankings. Findings - This empirical study corroborates that rankings focus on teaching and research activities but rarely measure the HEIs' connection to practice. Originality/value - As the measurements used by international university rankings are claimed to have a huge impact on the structuring of the academic environment, this paper shows that international rankings fail to measure the HEIs' success in developing third mission activities.