Measuring academic reputation: THE vs QS

Part two of the series on THE vs QS: a data-led deep dive into how each measures academic reputation, and why one survey's winners can be the other survey's also-rans.

Measuring research quality: THE vs QS

Ahead of THE's 2027 rankings, here is a deep dive on how THE and QS measure research quality, and how that decides who comes out on top

Ghost Affiliations

An exposé on "ghost affiliations," a shadow economy where universities buy the names of high-impact researchers to artificially boost global rankings.

The Research Iron Curtain: Mapping the New Geopolitics of Knowledge

The descent of a "Research Iron Curtain" is fracturing the global academy, forcing a stark choice between the resilience of open collaboration and the stagnation of scientific isolation.

Mutual Admiration Society: Distinguishing Citation Cartels from Intellectual Soulmates

In academia’s “Mutual Admiration Society,” citation cartels secretly inflate metrics by swapping citations. This new framework distinguishes fraudulent cliques from genuine intellectual soulmates using statistical evidence from OpenAlex data.

The Hall of Mirrors: Decoding the Rise and Fall of Academic Self-Citation

Academic self-citation exists at the complex intersection of scholarly transparency and strategic metric inflation, prompting a crucial distinction between legitimate knowledge building and system manipulation.