The Top of the Pile Academic Order as a Quality Benchmark

Catherine Paradeise and Jean-Claude Thoenig
Additional contact information
Catherine Paradeise: University Paris-Est
Jean-Claude Thoenig: Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and University Paris-Dauphine

Chapter 7 in In Search of Academic Quality, 2015, pp 157-191 from Palgrave Macmillan

Abstract: Abstract Just like Humboldtian universities at the turn of the 20th century, Top of the Pile institutions — ToPs — embody the absolute academic quality benchmark at the beginning of the 21st century. They account for less than one to three per cent of the world total. Policy-makers strive to develop higher education institutions under their jurisdiction to embrace the ideal in the hope that they will be able to compete sooner or later on an equal footing with those at the top. This chapter stresses how ToPs assign central importance to academic talent as the ultimate added value for creating, maintaining and certifying quality and attract talented faculty members and graduate students. It describes financial and administrative governance characteristics that these institutions display, which support academic leadership in a variety of topics and fields. What makes ToPs apparently so successful is how they combine academic talent, administrative efficiency and financial resources to build a virtuous circle that simultaneously generates excellence and reputation-based quality (Salmi 2009).

Keywords: Faculty Member; Academic Quality; Talented Student; Virtuous Circle; Epistemic Culture (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:pal:palchp:978-1-137-29829-4_8

Ordering information: This item can be ordered from
http://www.palgrave.com/9781137298294

DOI: 10.1057/9781137298294_8

Access Statistics for this chapter

More chapters in Palgrave Macmillan Books from Palgrave Macmillan
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().