Utrecht University Library will not renew their Web of Science license. Access to this database with closed, proprietary data ends in 2026. www.uu.nl/en/news/acce.... Step by step we foster a science system with open metadata. We committed to that by signing the @barcelonadori.bsky.social

For publication metadata nerds: viz of the generation of various metadata and their flow through the scholarly publishing system. The link goes to the online version that is fully animated, and has additional versions. Wonder if you think this is useful. docs.google.com/presentation...

Science, researchers and research communities increasingly need to be resilient to threats and actual incursions relating to budget, academic freedom, safety in the public arena, science databases and infrastructures and more. We created this framework to inspire communities in their resilience.

21/21 Finally, several countries (e.g. UK & Netherlands) have quite awful policies requiring people wanting to enter for work after graduation etc. to have a attended a university listed in the top 50 (UK) or top 200 (NL) of at least two rankings. www.gov.uk/high-potenti... ind.nl/en/residence...

16/n And if you want to do in depth reading there is the book by Colin Diver press.jhu.edu/books/title/... and Michelle Stack's collection utorontopress.com/978148752339... and that of Ellen Hazelkorn routledge.com/Global-Ranki...

14/n Because as I sometimes say, Utrecht's ranking is that of Bandung, Amsterdam's ranking is that of Paramaribo.... I am not the only one doi.org/10.1016/S014...

13/n Hope this helps others (esp. at high ranked uni's) rethink university ranking and take some action, But also have the big discussions around assessment, open science and equity, including effects of (neo)colonialism in ranking. collections.unu.edu/eserv/UNU:90...

12/n Utrecht University supports INORM's MTOR More Than Our Rank initiative. It signals our position visibly and shows that we are accountable, but also that we do not like to be alone in this. This is a classical collective problem inorms.net/more-than-ou...

11/n A report for UNL (Dutch uni assoc)
includes a strategy to move away from rankings w/ actions on various aspects/levels, with a reaction from UNL on their priorities in implementing this. Such national alignment is great but no requirement. universiteitenvannederland.nl/en_GB/f_c_ra...

10/n Together with now >600 institutions we signed the COARA coara.eu Agreement on Reforming Research Assessment, committing to action. It includes a commitment on ranking. coara.eu/app/uploads/...

9/n We added some general contextualisation to our rankings page. As you see, this is not radical at all, but a necessary starting point. And yes, we still provide prospective students and researchers with info on our ranking position (not there yet ;-)) uu.nl/en/organisat...

8/n Moving away from impact factors in research(er) assessment by signing DORA sfdora.org and publicly announce stopping their use doi.org/10.1038/d415... fits our recognition and rewards transition uu.nl/en/research/..., with detail in the FAQ.

7/n At Utrecht University, moving away from rankings has been coming for many years. But while thinking and building some consensus develops gradually, concrete steps lag a few years and are more ad hoc and stepwise, though always fitting our vision. So far we took 7 steps.

6/n However, this still leaves fundamental critique of rankings and their usage. INORMS REWG provided criteria for responsible ranking that are often based on more widely accepted charters and principles inorms.net/wp-content/u...

5/n Some non-commercial ranking providers try to do a better job in terms of rigour and measuring what matters: The Leiden Ranking and U-Multirank. The Leiden Ranking also announced a bold move to a ranking based entirely on open data www.leidenmadtrics.nl/articles/the...

4/n It is important to note that our critique of ranking regards all university rankings, not just that of THE. They are all severely lacking, as shown by research from the the work on rethinking rankings by INORMS: inorms.net/rethinking-g... / doi.org/10.29024/sar...

3/n This means that the main reasons to withdraw are the ranking's focus on competition where we want collaboration but also the (in my view harmful) simplification and methodologically questionable practices of university rankings www.uu.nl/en/news/why-...

2/n Our removal from the ranking is an effect of not providing data anymore. Only universities that provide data are listed. The main reason - apart from cost/time investment of providing data - is the misalignment the ranking's values with ours, that are about collaboration and open science:

Utrecht University in the Netherlands has withdrawn itself from the World University Ranking provided by Times Higher Education by not sending that company data anymore. As this has generated quite some reactions - praise, questions, some doubts, I want to provide some context. Hence this thread 1/n