Category: Higher education

Business schools and scholars (3)

The third edition is here.

The records of more people have been vetted. Junior and administrative staff have been removed. And Cork has been added. The refined ranking is TCD, (QUB, UCD), (NUIG, UU), (UL, NUIM), DCU, UCC, DIT, NCI.

The main conclusions (here and here) still stand.

I also counted publications in top journals (score 4 according to ABS) by people affiliated to Irish universities. Less than 5% of people have published in these journals (while employed in Ireland); and less than 2% of published papers are in these journals. The scores are as follows: UCD (15), UL (7), NUIG & TCD (6), UCC (5), DCU (4), QUB (3), NUIM (1). Four people published three papers in top journals (while affiliated in Ireland): Patrick Gunnigle (24), Tom Turner (32), Rory O’Shea (74), and William Kingston (109). The number in brackets is their rank on life-time achievement (publication, citations, h-index). While some people want to exclude all but the top journals, I really do not understand that.

I’ll write up the paper now. Comments on the data should be made, by email, within the next two weeks.

McDonald and Cuffe on Metro North

On PrimeTime last week, Sean Barrett and Edgar Morgenroth cast severe doubt on the wisdom of Metro North. They are now joined by Frank McDonald.

Cairan Cuffe’s response starts with “[n]ow is the time to invest”. That says it all really. You can read the rest for yourself.

The Green Party is apparently still oblivious to the situation with the economy and the public finances. Cuffe wants to invest billions of euros in a project with a doubtful return. Gormley wants to spend unnecessary hundreds of millions of euros on waste disposal, despite warnings of his own EPA.  Ryan invests ESB’s money in electric cars and continues a subsidy scheme that does not deliver according to his own SEAI.

It is never wise to waste money, but now is a particularly bad time.

Dublin is badly served by public transport at present. Liberation of the bus market is the way forward.

UPDATE: Metro North got planning.

Business schools and scholars (2)

I decided to give an interim update of the assessment of business schools and scholars on the island of Ireland, because things have changed. Latest results are here.

The records of 18 people have been double-checked and corrected where appropriate. More significantly, I had overlooked a department in Maynooth which has been added. Another department employs two high performers without listing them on their front page.

As a result, the preliminary ranking has changed: TCD, (UCD, QUB), (NUIG, UU, NUIM), (DCU, UL), DIT, NCI. Brackets indicate institutions whose performance is similar.

Note that Cork is still missing.

I’ve added sex and rank where known. The sex results are not good. The rank results are roughly as they should be: professor > reader > senior lecturer > lecturer > junior lecturer.

There are two exceptions, however: Associate professors perform on par with full professors, and post-docs perform on par with lecturers. I would expect there to be progression from the former to the latter.

While looking at the ranks, I came across all sorts of weird stuff. Full professors without a doctorate. Teaching assistants with a doctorate. Lecturers of French (in a business school!). Senior teaching assistants. And one of the department runs a restaurant — ostensibly for experimental purposes.

Assessing business schools and business scholars

Recently, Benoit and Marsh assessed the research performance of political scientists in Ireland and Ruane and Tol did the same for economists. It is business’ turn now.

There are 8 business schools in the Republic of Ireland that claim to do academic research (and another 11 that only teach). Early September, the 8 research-oriented business schools employed 543 teaching and research staff. For comparison, Queen’s U Belfast and Ulster U are also included. This makes a total of 761 business scholars.

For that reason, a simple method is used. Data were collected from Scopus only. Four statistics were gathered: year of first publication, number of publications, number of citations, and h-index. People’s name, affiliation, specialization, degree, rank, and sex were also recorded. The results are here (5 people updated).

The data have been cross-checked with CVs when online. Other than that, the data are not validated. If you are a business scholar in Ireland, please check your entries and send me an email when something is amiss.

There are preliminary results that are likely to stand up to vetting of the data.

Some 60% of business scholars in the Republic and 50%  in the North have never published in a journal included in the Scopus database. This is the most comprehensive database available, covering all the main journals and many minor ones (e.g., Economic and Social Review, Knitting International) — but not all (e.g., Irish Journal of Management, Irish Marketing Journal, Irish Marketing Review). University lecturers are partly paid to do academic research and a large number appear not to fulfill this duty — including some who are full professors. The fraction of research-active people varies dramatically between institutions, from 10% to 80%. It also varies between specializations, from 30% (accounting) to 75% (management information systems).

The life-time achievement varies substantially between business scholars. The highest number of publications is 91, the greatest number of citation is 499, and the largest h-index is 13. This indicates that the top business scholars of Ireland perform on par with the top economists and political scientists. Productivity varies too. The largest number of published papers per year is 6, the greatest number of citations is 37 per year, and the highest h-rate is 1 per year.

The top 10 (life-time achievement) consists of Paul Humphreys (UU), Rodney McAdam (UU) , Tony Brabazon (UCD), John Addison (QUB), Ronan McIvor (UU), Tom Begley (UCD), Brian Lucey (TCD), Rob Gilles (QUB), Brian Fynes (UCD) and Frank Barry (TCD). For productivity, the top 10 contains Rodney McAdam (UU), Karan Sonpar (UCD), Paul Humphreys (UU), Tony Brabazon (UCD), Maria Annunziata Liguori (QUB), Ronan McIvor (UU), Frank Figge (QUB), Brian Lucey (TCD), David Collings (UCG) and Regina Connolly (DCU). Recall that individual data still have to be vetted.

The institutions are very different too. The smallest has just 10 faculty, and the largest over 150. If we rank the institutions based on the average number of publications (per head and per active researcher), citation and h-index, and the average number of publication, citations and h-index per year, the following order emerges: TCD, UCD, QUB, UU, UCG, DCU, UL, NUIM, DIT, and NCI.

QUB ranks 19th in the 2008 RAE; UU ranks 49th out of 90 business schools. Although the RAE uses a very different methodology, this suggests that TCD and UCD are on par with the best 20 business schools in the UK, while the other business schools in the Republic are more like the worst 40.

In terms of research, most of the institutions specialize in 2-3 (out of 6) areas; UCD and UL cover 4. If these were businesses rather than business schools, one would recommend that the institutions limit their activities to their core competences. As there are horizontal economies of scale in teaching the various aspects of business, mergers would follow.

Smart, smarter, smartest

Another day, another committee. Forfas has established a high-level group to identify research priorities for Ireland. The group’s composition suggests that its recommendations will be demand-driven. Research is no good, however, unless it is top class. Ireland should research those things at which it can beat the world — and import all other knowledge.

Batt O’Keeffe reminds us that economic growth and job creation are driven by technological progress but forgets that this is true in the medium- to long-term. In the short-term, other factors are more important, as reported earlier by John McManus. Ronnie O’Toole adds that it is all good and well to focus on the export sector, but that the domestic sector urgently needs to be smartened up too — through regulatory reform rather than by spending money we don’t have.