Within higher education, world-class universities are commonly regarded as elite research universities and play a critical role in developing a nation's competitiveness in the global knowledge economy. An increasing number of countries, regions and higher education institutions in different parts of the world have joined the same battle for academic excellence. While emerging countries and their universities make every effort to enhance their capacity and boost their research performance, the academic superpowers endeavour to maintain - if not further improve- their global positions.
"Building World-Class Universities: Different Approaches to a Shared Goal" intends to provide an in-depth picture of different approaches in pursuit of the shared goal of developing academic excellence, and to reflect the current trends in this field. Divided into three parts, the book covers:
. building world-class universities from a national/regional perspective,
. managing world-class universities from an institutional perspective, and
. measuring world-class universities from a ranking/indicator perspective.
This book not only represents a contribution to the ongoing discussion on the topic of building world-class universities, but can be seen as a continuation of the previous three volumes on this topic - "World-Class Universities and Ranking: Aiming beyond Status", "The World-Class University as Part of a New Higher Education Paradigm: From Institutional Qualities to Systemic Excellence", and "Paths to a World-Class University: Lessons from Practices and Experiences". All four books will be useful readings for students and academics in higher education generally, in addition to policy makers and informed practioners.d practitioners

Acknowledgements; 1. Building World-Class Universities: Different Approaches to a Shared Goal; Section 1: Building World-Class Universities from a National/Regional Perspective; 2. Different Roads to a Shared Goal: Political and Cultural Variation in World-Class Universities; 3. The Impact of Excellence Initiatives in Taiwan Higher Education; 4. World-Class Universities: Experience and Practices of Russian Universities; Section 2: Managing World-Class Universities from an Institutional Perspective; 5. Making a Strong University Stronger: Change without a Burning Platform; 6. An Excellence Initiative in Liberal Arts and Science Education: The Case of Amsterdam University College; 7. Policies on Building World-Class Universities in Saudi Arabia: An Impact Study of King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals; Section 3: Evaluating World-class Universities from a Ranking/Indicator Perspective; 8. World University Rankings and the Consequent Reactions of Emerging Nations; 9. Global Benchmarking and Partner Selection Using World University Rankings and Classifications; 10. Rational and Constructive Use of Rankings: A Challenge for Universities in the Global South; 11. World-Class University and Asia's Top Tier Researchers; 12. The Global Institutional Profiles Project: A New Approach to Evaluating Academic Institutions; 13. The Ranking Web and the "World-Class" Universities: New Webometric Indicators Based on G-Factor, Interlinking, and Web 2.0 Tools; About the Authors.