It’s a busy time of year for rankings. In the past few weeks, we’ve seen the publication of the 2018 US News & World Report Best Global Universities

A key recommendation in the Rankings Influencers research is to ensure that academics are attending high-quality international conferences, a key factor in building reputation.

Reputation has focused much on China over recent weeks with the 5 yearly National Congress of the Communist Party taking place and the bolstering of the power of President Xi Jinping.

Academics whose opinions are canvassed for world university rankings are sceptical of the methodologies used and often don’t make evidence-based decisions when nominating the best universities, according to new research by the World 100 Reputation Network.

When the room is filled with communications professionals, you’d expect the networking session at the W100 Annual Conference to be a lively affair. And it is. If you could listen in to the conversations taking place, you would hear colleagues sharing their experiences with peers from across the world.

I was there to run some reputation workshops for Japanese universities keen to improve their image, and attract more international students, plus present findings of a study for the British Council in Japan on how UK universities made the most of the Olympics.

Following the recent Discover the W100 event in Amsterdam, we are pleased to announce two new additions to the network; Utrecht University and University of Groningen

The first Discover the World 100 event took place recently in Amsterdam. The event engaged directors from top-ranked northern European Universities including 7 of the 11 world-ranked Dutch institutions.

Following the success of previous years, Keio University will again host the annual Experience Japan Exhibition 2014, in collaboration with the British Council, on Saturday, 15 November,13:00 - 18:00 at the Royal Society, London.