Should top universities be led by top researchers and are they?. A citations analysis
| Date | 01 May 2006 |
| Pages | 388-411 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/00220410610666529 |
| Published date | 01 May 2006 |
| Author | Amanda H. Goodall |
| Subject Matter | Information & knowledge management,Library & information science |
Should top universities be led by
top researchers and are they?
A citations analysis
Amanda H. Goodall
Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK
Abstract
Purpose – This paper seeks to address the question: should the world’s top universities be led by top
researchers, and are they?
Design/methodology/approach – The lifetime citations are counted by hand of the leaders of the
world’s top 100 universities identified in a global university ranking. These numbers are then
normalised by adjusting for the different citation conventions across academic disciplines. Two
statistical measures are used – Pearson’s correlation coefficient and Spearman’s
r
.
Findings – This study documents a positive correlation between the lifetime citations of a
university’s president and the position of that university in the global ranking. Better universities are
run by better researchers. The results are not driven by outliers. That the top universities in the world
– who have the widest choice of candidates – systematically appoint top researchers as their vice
chancellors and presidents seems important to understand. This paper also shows that the pattern of
presidents’ life-time citations follows a version of Lotka’s power law.
Originality/value – There are two main areas of contribution. First, this paper attempts to use
bibliometric data to address a performance-related question of a type not seen before (to the author’s
knowledge). Second, despite the importance of research to research universities – as described in
many mission-statements – no studies currently exist that ask whether it matters if the head of a
research university is himself or herself a committed researcher. Given the importance of universities
in the world, and the difficulty that many have in appointing leaders, this question seems pertinent.
Keywords Referencing,Leadership, Universities, Researchwork
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
This paper is a study of universities and those who lead them. It ap pears to be the first
of its kind. Although there is a large academic literature on leadership, there has been
little statistical thinking about presidents of universities[1].
The paper is interested in the question: should research universities be led by top
researchers? It is explored empirically by examining what the world’s universities
actually do. If the best universities – who arguably have the widest choice of
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0022-0418.htm
The author is grateful to two anonymous referees and also for valuable discussions to Gary
Becker, David Blanchflower, Sara Brailsford, Gordon Brown, Alison Browning, Richard Chait,
Kim Clark, Rafael Di Tella, Richard Easterlin, Daniel Gilbert, John Glier, Philip Goodall, Amy
Gutmann, Daniel Hamermesh, Alma Harris, Patrick Harker, Jean Hartley, John Heilbron, Jeremy
Knowles, Hermon Leonard, Stephen Machin, James March, Robin Naylor, Brendan O’Leary,
Charles Oppenheim, Andrew Oswald, Andrew Parker, Henry Rosovsky, Stephen Sharp,
Lawrence Summers, Paul Stoneman, William Taylor, Howard Thomas, Steve Weiland, Gareth
Williams and David Wilson.
JDOC
62,3
388
Received June 2005
Revised October 2005
Accepted October 2005
Journal of Documentation
Vol. 62 No. 3, 2006
pp. 388-411
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0022-0418
DOI 10.1108/00220410610666529
candidates – systematically appoint top researchers as their presidents, this could be
one form of evidence that, on average, better researchers may make better presidents.
Economists would call this a revealed preference argument.
When looking at the individuals who lead the world’s top 100 universities it is
possible to find both a handful of Nobel Prize winners and a handful of leaders with
few or no research citations. It might be thought from this fact that there is no
systematic link between research output and university leadership. Yet there is a
pattern. This paper uncovers a correlation between the research background of a leader
and the position of their university in a world league table.
Why is this question important?
First, around the world, interest in university leadership and governance has grown as
universities have become increasingly competitive and global. Major changes have
taken place in universities and subsequently in the role and responsibilities of their
leaders. (These have been documented in Bargh et al., 2000; Bok, 2003; Tierney et al.,
2004, among others.) It seems valuable to understand successful leadership in these
times.
Second, given the centrality of research performance in many university mission
statements – expressed through the quality of research produced, the research
eminence of staff and the concomitant income they generate – it is logical to turn to the
research background of their presidents. The first question, addressed in this paper
through statistical tests using Pearson’s correlation coefficient and Spearman’s
r
,isto
ask whether the world’s top universities currently appoint top researchers to the
position of president. Possible interpretations are discussed after the results are
presented.
Finally, the emphasis in this study is on the world’s leading research universities.
This group has been chosen because it is important to understand the actions of
successful organisations. But it is also significant to note that the majority of these
universities are based in the US. Much has been talked of in the press about issues of
brain-drain (see for example, Time Magazine, 15 March 2005) as faculty from Europe,
Asia and beyond move to the US. Given the likely significance of universities to an
economy, if many top academics leave their home country this might be a cause for
concern.
The role of research universities is currently receiving attention in Europe.
European Heads of States and Governments met in Lisbon in March 2000, and agreed
to make the EU “the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-driven economy by
2010”. This became known as the Lisbon Agenda. In Germany the Social Democratic
Party recently announced a plan to spend 1.9 billion Euros to develop 10 elite
universities that “can compete with the world’s best” (9 April 2005, www.DW-World.
de). In 2002, a group of top universities in Europe founded the League of European
Research Universities (LERU). On their web site it states “LERU acknowledges that
Europe has lost its pre-eminent position in basic research” (www.leru.org).
Methodology
This paper focuses on one set of variables or characteristics, namely the lifetime
citations of presidents. This score is used here as a pmeasure of how research-active
and successful a president has been in his or her academic career. The lifetime citation
A citations
analysis
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