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UniRanking

How we work in practice

Engagements, illustrated

How the work runs, drawn from situations institutions commonly face. These show approach and judgement rather than claiming results.

These are illustrative examples based on common institutional challenges and typical consulting engagements. They do not represent specific clients. We maintain strict confidentiality in all client relationships.

RankingsA mid-sized public university in the Gulf

Plateaued in a QS band despite rising research investment

Challenge

Five years in the same QS band while research funding rose steadily. Leadership could not explain the gap between investment and position.

Approach

  1. 1Full indicator audit against the QS methodology
  2. 2Affiliation and naming reconciliation across Scopus and Web of Science
  3. 3Restructured the survey distribution list for academic reputation
  4. 4Established a single owner for submission and year-round tracking

Deliverables

  • Indicator gap map
  • Corrected publication attribution
  • Reputation campaign plan
  • Annual submission calendar

Expected outcome

Institutions taking this approach typically recover attributed output first, which lifts citation-based indicators before any reputation effect appears.

AccreditationA private business school in Europe

Unsuccessful first AACSB review

Challenge

An initial review that did not succeed, citing unstructured Assurance of Learning and insufficient academically qualified faculty.

Approach

  1. 1Rebuilt Assurance of Learning as a closed loop inside the existing systems
  2. 2Mapped faculty qualifications against the standard and found the real shortfall
  3. 3Built a three-year hiring and development plan
  4. 4Rehearsed the peer review before the second attempt

Deliverables

  • AoL system design
  • Faculty qualification matrix
  • Hiring and development roadmap
  • Mock review report

Expected outcome

A second submission is usually stronger than a first because the gaps are known. The work is turning a list of findings into systems that keep running afterwards.

Rankings & AccreditationAn emerging technical institute in Asia

Building international credibility from a standing start

Challenge

No international recognition and an ambition to attract overseas STEM students within three years.

Approach

  1. 1Ran rankings and accreditation as one evidence programme rather than two
  2. 2Targeted programme accreditation for the core engineering degrees
  3. 3Optimised data submission for the impact-based tables
  4. 4Built the reporting to sustain both without duplicated effort

Deliverables

  • Joint evidence framework
  • Programme accreditation plan
  • Submission strategy
  • Shared reporting model

Expected outcome

Running both tracks together avoids building the same evidence twice, which is where most of the wasted effort in these programmes sits.

RankingsA research-intensive national university

Strong research, invisible in the tables

Challenge

Several highly cited researchers on staff, yet no measurable presence in the research-weighted rankings.

Approach

  1. 1Traced output lost to naming variants and unaffiliated publications
  2. 2Corrected records at source across the major databases
  3. 3Trained institutional research on the Shanghai methodology
  4. 4Established monitoring so attribution does not drift again

Deliverables

  • Hidden research asset audit
  • Database correction programme
  • Methodology training
  • Ongoing monitoring model

Expected outcome

Recovering existing output is usually faster than producing new research, and it is the first place to look when strong institutions are absent from research-weighted tables.

Recognise any of these?

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