Over the past two decades, international university rankings have become a sacred reference point in academia, though these rankings are produced by private (commercial) organizations rather than by any internationally recognized academic authorities, which raises questions about their validity and neutrality.
Central to this system is the growing belief that Scopus-indexed publications offer a shortcut to academic excellence, which by default leads us to ask some serious questions: is heavy investment in Scopus truly worth the cost, especially when the expense is financial not scholarl., and does the pursuit of higher rankings make sense when such rankings often fail to reflect the actual quantity and quality of produced research?
It is no secret that top-ranked universities continue to be predominantly American and European, which, I believe, reflects long-standing academic power structures. Recently, however, Chinese universities have risen in the rankings because of the high quantity and growing quality of their research output. Now, while this shift suggests changing academic dynamics, rankings themselves still oversimplify what universities actually do; complex academic work is reduced to numbers and scores/ranks, but in reality, rankings often reward compliance with specific publishing and indexing rules, and this is why they may be administratively sound, but they are far less reliable as indicators of real academic quality.
When looking at the way universities and researchers chase Scopus-indexed journals, it often seems that publishing has become an end in itself rather than a valuable contribution to knowledge. Institutions invest heavily through article submission, processing, publication, and even subscription fees while intellectual worth is often overlooked; plus, research becomes rushed, and academics may be hired or promoted based on low-quality or even flawed work.
Scopus has become almost a god-like gatekeeper, not because it guarantees excellence, but because institutions surrendered their own judgment to it; they wanted an easily measurable criterion for excellence, and Scopus offered one (expensive though it may be). In many ways, it somehow seems that high rankings can be purchased, not earned, through money rather than merit.
The rise of predatory journals (euphemistically called pay-and-publish) has exposed a flaw in how research is evaluated. These journals often claim to cover broad areas in the humanities or even sciences without any clear disciplinary focus; their editorial boards are filled with unfamiliar or academically inactive names, and they rarely come from recognized publishing houses. Yet they constantly bombard scholars with requests for submissions, promising a decision, usually of acceptance, within one week or less. What basically happens is that authors pay high publication fees, sometimes as much as $1,750 per article, and the journals use this revenue to sustain their indexing status (some even achieve high quartile labels (Q1) regardless of the actual quality of the research). If such is the case, then a journal publishing 12 issues a year with around 36 papers per issue can earn over $750,000 annually from author fees alone. This money keeps the journal running and maintains its indexed status, which then counts towards university rankings. In other words, predatory journals thrive by following some formal indexing rules and the “publish fast” pressure (which is the case of the McDonaldization of research) yet rankings treat these publications the same as genuinely rigorous journals. Seeing this, I can’t help but question whether our current ranking-driven approach really measures academic excellence, or just our ability to pay for it!
In light of the questions raised at the start, one may conclude that the answer is far from clear. University rankings do not accurately reflect research quality or meaningful scholarly contribution; we are operating in a system where money shapes what gets counted, and what gets counted determines who ranks higher. As I see it, academia does not need higher rankings; in fact, it needs better judgment to resist the temptation of easily measured, yet hollow, indicators. So, it seems that the university rankings could be cheating us. Did we just manage to create a god in academia, when academia itself is a sacred tradition and practice? Should we care about scholarly research, or scholarly publication, as a sign of academic excellence?
The writer is a student at Sultan Qaboos University
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