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Hi critters,
I've been in this list for some time, and there's an issue that has not got
a lot of attention - and I guess why. While we hve been debating a lot of
privatization, corporatization (and so forth) of academia and, especially,
the publishing system, I don't remember a lot of talks about the "rankings".
THE has just released the European 2016 best universities ranking.
Guess what, 4 out of 5 best universities are in the UK, and 6 out of 10
best.

Shall we talk about the inconsitencies of such "rankings"? To make an
example, my university (University of Lisbon) is not listed, while there's
one of its schools (Instituto Superior Tecnico)!
Roars, an Italian based group of researchers, has been making a huge work
in showing how unscientific are this and other rankings (here, for example
<http://www.roars.it/online/times-higher-education-world-university-rankings-science-or-quackery/>
).

To me, it is not surprising that UK-based organizations make rankings that
would favor the UK. I am astonished by the fact that "we", the
international academic community, accept such rankings as "international",
just because... they are in English!

Well, I'd love to hear some comments from UK-based academics...
:)

Best wishes, and... congrats to people in the top ten!
Simone


-- 
Simone Tulumello
*Post-doc research fellow, **ULisboa, **Instituto de Ciências Sociais*
*Fulbright visiting scholar, University of Memphis, Department City and
Regional Planning*

*latest publications*:
Tulumello S. (2015), Fear and Urban Planning in Ordinary Cities: From
Theory to Practice, *Planning Practice & Research*, 30(5), 477-496. Doi:
10.1080/02697459.2015.1025677
<http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02697459.2015.1025677>
Seixas J., Tulumello S., Corvelo S., Drago A. (2015). Dinâmicas
sociogeográficas e políticas na Área Metropolitana de LIsboa em tempos de
crise e austeridade. *Cadernos Metrópole*, 17(34), 371-399. Doi
10.1590/2236-9996.2015-3404 <http://dx.doi.org/10.1590/2236-9996.2015-3404>

webpage <http://www.ics.ulisboa.pt/pessoas/simone.tulumello> / blog
<http://simonetulumello.wordpress.com/> / academia.edu
<http://unipa.academia.edu/SimoneTulumello> / flickr
<http://www.flickr.com/photos/simotulu/> / twitter
<http://twitter.com/SimTulum>