Empirical Study of the Factors which Have an Impact on University Performance in EU Countries, Reflected by the Shanghai Ranking

Abstract

Abstract The study tries to prove the existence of a significant relationship between EU countries academic excellence measured by international university rankings scores and the level of attainment for the EU strategic objectives in higher education and research, as are measured by the countries’ values of the afferent indicators. The study was applied to the correlation between some headline indicators of the Europe 2020 strategy and the Shanghai Ranking scores. Measuring the strength of a linear association between variables by using the Pearson Correlation, a strong correlation was found between the country Shanghai scores and the country values for indicators such as: “public expenditure in education”, “expenditure in R&D”, “patent stock”, and “lifelong learning”. A moderate correlation with students’ international mobility was also identified.