Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyze if the indicators that are part of the world university rankings measure the performance of universities. The need to evaluate the performance of universities together with the lack of standardized instruments has positioned rankings as a measure of the efficiency levels of universities, a matter that is reasonable to question. This work analyzes nine world rankings and the 119 indicators present in them. Results indicate that only 10.1% of the indicators meet the characteristics attributed to performance measurement, and taking into account their relative weight, these indicators have a significance of 7.1%. In turn, five rankings do not have any indicator that records the definition of performance. Another finding is the existence of an association between the type of indicators and the mission dimensions of a university. These results allow us to conclude how inappropriate it is to consider university rankings as an adequate form of measuring the performance of universities, since they do not evaluate efficiency in the achievement of mission objectives nor do they adequately weight dimensions of performance.