In other words, once the number of people participating in and served by higher education expands, so as to begin to comprise and affect the whole of society rather than a narrow elite, then matters of higher education governance and management, and performance and productivity necessarily come to the fore.

The arrival of the Shanghai Academic Rankings of World Rankings (ARWU) in 2003 set off an immediate chain-reaction that speaks to pent-up demand in the political system, and arguably more widely, for more meaningful and internationally comparative measures of quality and performance. While rankings have been around since the early 1900s, global rankings represented a significant transformation in their range and influence. 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.

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