International University Rankings and Changing University Functions: Underlining indicators to capture societal and entrepreneurial contributions of universities Solanki Gupta * , Anurag Kanaujia ** , Sujit Bhattacharya *** , Vivek Kumar Singh **** * solankigupta2@gmail.com, ** anuragkanaujia01@gmail.com, **** vivek@bhu.ac.in 0000-0002-5779-2948, 0000-0002-5813-7427, 0000-0002-7348-6545 Department of Computer Science, Banaras Hindu University, Varanasi, India *** sujit_academic@yahoo.com 0000-0002-6769-8293; CSIR- National Institute of Science Communication and Policy Research (NIScPR), New Delhi, India Abstract: The international university rankings are now increasingly used for various purposes, including for funding decisions. Various stakeholders trust ranking assessments which are based on narrow set of criteria namely teaching, research, knowledge transfer, global outlook. However, the role of university in the contemporary scenario have evolved to include societal functions. This paper presents an analysis on the need for updating the ranking frameworks in the context of changing functions of the Universities. In depth literature review and thorough study of popular ranking frameworks (QS, THE and ARWU) were utilized for identifying areas whose inclusion may be beneficial towards addressing the new university functions. The study presents a case for inclusion of five criterion to expand the scope of university ranking framework besides their usual criticism. Keywords: Institutional rankings, STI ecosystem, Higher education, Performance Assessment, Societal development. 1. Introduction The university ranking frameworks since their origin in 1980s (US News & World Report 1 ), and wider adoption after the Shanghai league table in 2003 (Stergiou & Lessenich, 2014), have gained much importance among academic as well as administrative groups. Issued by a third party, these rankings make it easy to quantify the achievements of universities and compare them with each other. Thus, universities use the rankings to satisfy the public demand for transparency and information (Usher & Savino, 2006) and also to secure funding and resources. At least ten global and as many regional university ranking frameworks are currently active (Vernon, Balas & Momani, 2018). An explanation for the success of rankings originates from their ability to make heterogeneous characteristics of universities comparable through classification, normalization and standardization (De Rijcke et al., 2016), thus allowing universities to take part in a global higher education market driven by a competition for expertise, reputation, students and money. In the recent times, the role of funding and reputation has become even more pronounced, for these determine the quantity and quality of students, researchers, and funding support received by the universities worldwide (Lathabai et al., 2021). Further, factors like advancement of research in fields of statistics and bibliometrics, internationalization, globalization and economization in higher education have contributed to popularisation of university rankings. 1 https://www.usnews.com/education/best-global-universities/rankings