crucial and indispensable in this generation of educated and self-reliant citizens, and therefore15, in the development of a stable and productive middle class, at least that is their purpose. The main challenge for higher education institutions is, of course, the quality of education, pedagogical innovations in this field, and their capacity to change the lives of learners16.
This task is extremely difficult and also largely ignored by current ranking systems17. It is therefore with a touch of bad conscience18, and at the cost of numerous cross-references to the (numbered) notes grouped together in the Notes, Insertions and Tangents section of this study (a description of the content of each of the sections of this study is given below), that we have left more than 90% of universities out of this reflection, in order to concentrate on the small portion of those with significant research activity, and among them, the even smaller portion of universities in the international rankings. For convenience, we refer to the latter indiscriminately as “leading edge” or “elite” universities. Let there be no mistake: the author thinks, says and constantly repeats that the strategy of universities should not be based on international rankings. He is not a blissful admirer of the results of these rankings. However, it is clear that these international rankings have largely penetrated the landscape of higher education and research since 2003, and the first so-called Shanghai ranking, followed by about thirty others, including those of QS-THE (before these two organizations split and gave birth to two separate rankings) and more recently, the Leiden ranking19. We therefore try to take advantage of the phenomena that these rankings may reflect, regardless of how the experts feel about them20.
With the three limits set – acceptance of Samuel Huntington’s vision of the world in terms of civilizations and leading countries, Régis Debray’s refinements and nuances on the fact that a civilization is more than a culture and cannot simply be reduced to an economy, and a focus on the best universities in the world as rendered by international rankings – our approach is articulated in the form of a triptych, each part of which deals, in essence, with a question in a nutshell.
1.4. Why? Where? How?
The first part of the triptych is, of course, about identification, but above all, about the role of leading universities. The first aspect of identification is “easy”: international rankings have become a major tool for the graduation of leading universities. These international rankings form the thermometer that we consult. The main question of this first part of the triptych is, however, different. Indeed, the role of leading universities is not often addressed. While the answers may vary considerably from one place to another or from one period to another21, some common features can nevertheless be identified. What are these motivations? What are these common features and their weight in academic initiatives to create world champions from leading countries? Finally, what are the missions of these leading universities? These questions will be addressed in the “why?” section. The last of these questions are considered again, but under a different aspect in the concluding chapter of the book.
The second part asks “where?”. In other words, where are the best universities in the world? We propose a civilizational reading of the development of leading universities and their positioning in the context of a geostrategy of higher education and research. Our approach is different from and complementary to the book (Hazelkorn 2015) and the collective work (Hazelkorn 2017) led by Hazelkorn, where there is a notable emphasis on case studies. We propose a unified vision in light of the world rankings of universities. We address the question of “where?” in a context that may be broader than that of a single country or, when dealing with a single country, taking it as the spearhead of a broader civilization. Our focus, at this stage, is on civilizations and their flagship countries and seeks to draw global trends. This question of “where?” is based on a careful examination of the results of international rankings for both the flagship countries of civilizations and the civilizations themselves. This section therefore focuses on a review of the methodology used by the THE, QS, Leiden and Shanghai rankings, and the results of the Top 20, Top 200 and Top 1000 of these rankings, both for flagship countries and for civilizations, over a period of about 10–15 years, depending on the rankings.
Ideally, this work should be complemented by a targeted study of universities in each of the “seven or eight major civilizations of the world” and, within them, their flagship countries, if there are any22.
The third part, completing the triptych, should ask the question “how?”, within a conceptual framework of civilization and leading countries. This is a complex task and we are only initiating it in this part of our study.
Let us describe the complexity. In contrast to the three blocs that organized the world during the Cold War (free world, communist bloc, and non-aligned states), seven or eight civilizations constitute Huntington’s contemporary groupings of States (Huntington 1997, chapters 1 and 2). The organization of this geography has not remained without opposition. Among the protests expressed, not against this view of the world as civilizations, but against what civilizations digest and the boundaries to which they claim to adhere to according to Huntington (the first paragraph in the Appendix gives this assignment to the corresponding civilizations of the countries included in the various rankings), the strongest have come from Europe. Since Europe is also the historical cradle of universities, it is only fair to summarize the criticisms that have been expressed from the old continent.
Western civilization has two components. One is Anglo-Saxon (mainly USA, UK, Canada, New Zealand and Australia) and has English as its linguistic unit. The other component, European23, is more linguistically fragmented24. For example, for Jean-Pierre Chevènement, Huntington’s proposal of a dilution of European nations into a Western bloc is questionable: “Huntington’s scheme has a heuristic value: it allows us to orient ourselves, but loosely” (Chevènement 2016, p. 136). It might therefore be necessary to distinguish between Anglo-Saxon civilization and European civilization, considering the memory25 that some nations retain, and to see France, for example, as the flagship of European civilization. However, this does not always seem to be the case. Europe increasingly seems to revolve26 around Berlin rather than Paris.
So, is Europe a civilization apart, fundamentally different from the North American Anglo-Saxon civilization? Or has it been taken into the United States’ orbit as a “junior partner”, in other words, as a minor and residual component of Western civilization? Like Jean-Pierre Chevènement, Régis Debray is also critical of the reading proposed by Samuel Huntington. However, he leaves little doubt about the direction of his aforementioned work. The legendary mediologist states:
In 1919, there was a European civilization with American culture as a variant. There is, in 2017, an American civilization, whose European cultures seem, with all their diversity, at best, adjustment variables, at worst, indigenous reserves.
On a chessboard, this is called castling. On a battlefield, a defeat. (Debray 2017, p. 48)
Taking note of this castling and defeat, the United States of America, is indeed the leading country of Western civilization, including Europe. This is the view taken in this book27 although, we allow ourselves a brief review of continental academic Europe in the concluding chapter of this book, as well as in a substantial footnote. In order of priority, it would be advisable to begin by studying the “how?” across Western civilization and the USA28.
It is probably through Chinese civilization, and its flagship country, China, that the landscape of higher education and research should continue to be studied as a counterpoint to what is happening within Western civilization. Anticipating our conclusions, let us say that the academic center of gravity is rapidly shifting towards China and the civilization it nurtures29. It would then be a matter of further study into the Indian civilization and
