Staff responsible for U-Multirank ¨C to be published for the first time in March ¨C discussed details of the project at the World-Class Universities conference, held by Shanghai Jiao Tong University from 3 to 6 November.

Adam Tyson, head of higher education and Erasmus at the European Commission, said U-Multirank ¨C which is funded by the Commission, the EU¡¯s executive body ¨C would ¡°help to recognise diversity and excellence in different forms¡±.

The ranking would be about more than research performance, taking into account indicators such as ¡°quality of teaching and learning¡± as well as knowledge transfer and contribution to regional development, he told the conference in Shanghai, where Times Higher Education was also among the participants.

It was ¡°important not to produce league tables¡±, Mr Tyson said. He argued that it was important for governments to be able to understand their institutions and their higher education systems to meet policy challenges.

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Gero Federkeil, U-Multirank coordinator, confirmed that around 650 institutions had registered for participation.

From those a ¡°full data set¡± has been obtained ¡°for more than 600 institutions¡±, he said.

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¡°In addition to that we will include the top research institutions based on bibliometric analysis from our colleagues in Leiden [the CWTS Leiden Ranking],¡± Mr Federkeil added.

As the bibliometric and patent data on top research universities already exists, this element ¡°does not require the active involvement, participation, of universities,¡± he continued.

U-Multirank has secured involvement from 15 US institutions. The ranking aims to build worldwide participation in future years progressively.

Mr Federkeil said there would be a ¡°pre step to the ranking¡±, involving a U-Multirank ¡°tool to identify comparable institutions¡± based on factors such as student population or ¡°international orientation versus regional orientation¡±.

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Then, users ¡°will define in which type of profile of institution he or she is interested¡±, he added.

And in the final step, ¡°there will be a ranking amongst this particular institutional profile. This means we will not have one long list of some thousand institutions with very different profiles.¡±

Users could choose ¡°different combinations of selection criteria¡± which would tailor their ranking results to their individual interests, Mr Federkeil said.

View the Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2013-2014

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john.morgan@tsleducation.com