[This blog is also published on Social Science Space.]

It’s that time of the year again. Some 50 percent of your academic LinkedIn connections share they are “happy” or even “thrilled” that their institution went up some places on the recently published Shanghai Ranking (officially known as the Academic Ranking of World Universities), while the other 50 percent remain remarkably silent. Marketing departments of the climbing universities produce hyped-up press releases and journalists fill their pages with clickbait articles about “the 100 best universities in the world” and “the 10 biggest risers and fallers.” In response, some critics write op-eds about the fact that rankings are ridiculous, and that’s that. Everything’s quiet again until the next ranking comes out and the circus starts all over again. I argue that we should ignore rankings as academics: they are misleading and harmful to academic values.