Universities around the world compete for talented faculty and researchers, for promising students, and for resources and research funding. One element in that competition is where institutions appear in the various university rankings. For around two decades, university ranking schemes have claimed to be relatively objective measures of institutional quality that can help faculty, prospective students and their parents, policy- makers, funders and industry make decisions about where to work, study, invest or recruit.
This report attempts to provide an understanding of how some universities, which do not appear among the top ranked institutions, pursue and achieve excellence in their local contexts and serve their local and regional communities.
