Methodology

We have used a range of different measures within our ranking. We fully accept that this method is problematic, but it is important to stress that ALL university rankings are problematic. Numbers are not objective, and the ways that they are combined and calculated also involves entirely subjective choices. Our ranking is highly imperfect in that we don’t have all of the data that we’d ideally like, and all data has inherent biases – whatever you include, you dis-/advantage someone. We’ve had to exclude four HEIs (Institute of Education, Llandrillo Menai, NPTC Group, Gower College) because the data simple wasn’t available in more than one or two categories.

The data we’ve used is publicly available. This means that we are not asking for universities to crunch and massage data based around particular criteria that set out – there’s no additional work required. Much of it is from HESA’s 2017-18 student and staff releases, for whom it will already have been crunched and massaged. It is what it is, it’s probably been gamed in some way, but it hasn’t been gamed for us. We also haven’t considered research here because the data around funding, citations, quality, and impact, are too problematic, and isn’t publicly accessible in an easily digestible form. Without the budget and staff numbers of the REF, Times Higher etc, it’s just not feasible.

Over the past few months we’ve been talking to people on Twitter about the things that we might like to see in rankings, much of which isn’t there. For example, it would be really useful to see things rates of staff absence and sickness, harassment cases, or the precise details of the non-disclosure payouts to staff that are in the news at the moment. But still, what we’ve got tells us something, and we’ve put it into three categories:

• Student Diversity
• Staff Diversity
• Leadership

All of the sub-categories are weighted equally. Any weighting has its flaws as it dis-/favours someone, or dis-/favours certain dimensions, be it reputation, citations, funding, whatever. Whichever way you go, it’s both right and wrong, and we’ve gone for an even split.

Student diversity

• BAME Students (Source: HESA) It is well-documented that the world we live in is institutionally racist, and white supremacy is sewn into the fabric of the education system, university admissions, and university cultures. – particularly at ‘elite’ universities. We’ve therefore have ranked the ‘least white’ universities highest, in that these places are Our ranking is not a sign that universities are necessarily inclusive in their internal cultures, but that they are, in some way, being ethnically inclusive in their admissions. There will be geographical biases in here, too, in that those doing better are likely to be in more ethnically diverse regions and towns – but the higher status universities in major cities still aren’t doing so well.

• Students from Low HE Participation Neighbourhoods (Source: HESA). As with ethnicity, universities have a class problem. Poorer students don’t do so well as school, and it’s not because they’re not ‘clever’. They’re less likely to go to university, and particularly to get the grades required to get into top universities, which in turn provide access to better jobs. We have therefore ranked the universities according to the proportion of students from low participation neighbourhoods. There are issues with postcode-related data as the lines between areas may not be clear, and it doesn’t include the finer detail of students’ actual social/educational background, just where they live.

• State School Students (Source: HESA) We know that less than 10% of the UK population attend private schools but they dominate high status universities, professions (particularly at the top), and public life in general. We’ve therefore ranked the universities with the greatest proportions of non-privately educated students rank highest. Within this, we acknowledge that not everyone at those schools will necessarily be economically privileged – there will be students come from poorer backgrounds on scholarships, or from church and military backgrounds. Also, ‘state schools’ is a very broad category, encompassing everything from academically/socially selective grammar schools to the more egalitarian local comprehensives.

• Students with a Disables Students’ Allowance (Source: HESA) We live in an ableist world, where people with disabilities are often not given sufficient support in order to thrive as much as they could and should. We’ve therefore ranked, from top to bottom, the universities according to the proportion of students they have with DSA. We know that this will not accurately capture all students with a disability, as some disabled students will not receive an allowance, and some will not know (or share with their university) that they are disabled. It also doesn’t reflect how well-supported they are, but perhaps there’s a link between disability-friendly universities and where they choose to study.

LEADERSHIP

We thought it was important to turn the tables (excuse the pun) on senior leadership in our university rankings. Students rate their experience, and staff are measured in various ways, and its those staff who get it in the neck if the numbers aren’t shiny. Why do we not look at staff satisfaction as well as student satisfaction? The role of managers is about making the machine purr, but that should include making sure staff are happy in their roles. We’re offering a few categories as suggestions as to things VCs and their teams should be working harder on:

• Taking Student Abuse Seriously (Source: Broadly) Broadly submitted Freedom of Information (FOI) Requests to all UK HEIs, asking for details of the number of student abuse cases they had, and how many led to sanctions for the perpetrators. Those with data and highest rates of sanction scored highest, followed by those with data but low sanction rates, then those who recorded the data but not the outcomes of any procedures – we thought this could imply that they recognise abuse as an issue, but could be taking it more seriously. We bottom-ranked those who don’t record data or rejected the FOI request on the basis that it was too difficult or too expensive for them. They should be doing better. We acknowledge that sanction rates and the precise nature of cases is being glossed over here, but as we know, a lot of cases don’t make it through the disciplinary procedure for all of the wrong reasons.

• Vice-Chancellors’ Salaries (Source: OfS/THE) Universities with the most highly-remunerated VCs rank lowest, the lowest-paid rank highest. This, as with all of the categories, isn’t perfect, but there various interesting questions around how much VCs should be paid. This is particularly in comparison to salaries in the private/financial sector and the volume of low-paid and precarious staff in universities, as well as the criteria for their pay raises and whether they’re involved in that pay-raising process. This is an important topic and there is evidence of bad practice here. (We note that the Data for England is from the OfS and relates to 2017-18, and that for Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland comes from the THE and is for 2016-17, so the England may have been slightly disadvantaged by VC wage inflation between the two years. Oh well!.)

• University Non-mismanagement (Source: Medium). This is the bluntest of all of our instruments! We ranked universities which are not threatening/imposing redundancies equal first, and those who are redundancies all equal last (for the record, 140th). We know this doesn’t capture the nuances of mismanagement of workloads, toxic work environments, and so on, but we wanted to bring this issue into the conversation. That some university leaders have overreached themselves financially and expect staff and their families to bear the brunt of it is a national scandal.

• Staff Precarity (Source: HESA) This is one of the most pressing issues for – particularly early career – academics and professional services staff. from project to project, but there is a better solution than this. HEIs with the lowest number of precarious staff score best. Senior researchers and managers are forging careers based on the part-time and/or limited term employment of junior colleagues. Yes, this is partly the nature of the way that research funding functions, and contract work, part- or full-time may suit some people, but the fact that it so widespread is appalling.

• Gender Pay Gap (Source: HESA) That women are paid less than men and progress up through the system at a slower rate is a travesty. We estimated the pay bills for all staff (not just academic) by totalling the number of male/female staff in each pay bracket; we the pay averages, weighted by male/female staff numbers. We had to use the bottom pay scale – rounded up – in each category (e.g. £19K for the £18,77-£24,983 bracket) because the highest bracket is £60,410 and upwards. We recognise that this will significantly underestimate the pay gap because men are likely to be higher up in each bracket, and senior academic/management staff will be earning well in excess of £60K. We also acknowledge that using male/female does not include trans staff but sadly the data on this is not available.

STAFF DIVERSITY

As with the student body, the staff population is also not as diverse as it should be, with disparities according to race, class, gender, and more. Class data is not available, and we didn’t crunch the gender data – maybe we should – but we thought the pay gap at least partially covered key gender issues, not including harassment. The lack of diversity is more pronounced the further up you go, both terms of in university status and the seniority of roles. We should be doing much, much better. It’s not about giving the undeserving a nudge past their more capable colleagues, it’s the system that’s fucked up.

• Staff Ethnicity (Source, HESA) Pretty self-explanatory at this stage, but the universities with the most ethnically diverse staff are ranked more highly.
• Staff with a Registered Disability (Source: HESA) As above, higher rankings for universities with more disabled staff. As with the DSA, many staff may be disabled and not have a registered disability.