Why do French universities lag behind in international rankings?

By Michel Villette. In France, it’s customary to think of the higher education and research sector as a public service. To speak of it as an industry or to say the role of branding is as decisive as in the car or luxury goods markets may seem shocking.
Yet looking at how French research is managed from a marketing angle reveals how incapable it is of achieving the goals that have been set for it.
Harvard, MIT, Berkeley, Oxford and Cambridge are undoubtedly complicated organisations where decisions are difficult to make and where, as in France, researchers are struggling to maintain their independence. But they’ve established themselves as global brands, supported by effective organisations. More...