WAKE-UP CALL for Ecuador’s universities

Abstract

The definition of wake-up call is something that alerts people to an unsatisfactory situation and drives them to remedy it. In this sense, today's publication of QS World University Rankings 2020 can be seen as a wake-up call for Ecuador’s universities, SENESCYT, CACES and CES. First, the article assesses the performance of Ecuador’s universities using the QS World University Rankings 2020 method. The analysis reveals that the group of Ecuadorian universities with better performance is extremely small and, in addition, most of the institutions included in the 2020 QS ranking saw their ranking declined with respect to their ranking in 2019. Parallel to the QS ranking, the publication record in SCOPUS journals of 11 better ranked Ecuadorian universities was analyzed for the period 2009-2019. The average annual number of published papers increased drastically in this period from 22.2 to 192 (873%), although the surveyed institutions saw their annual publication record raising, some of them were not able to maintain their position. The second section of the manuscript highlights what the Ecuadorian universities ought to do to improve their performance and their contribution to the progress of society. According to the author, universities must urgently invest in quality, take advantage of the potential of modern learning methods, make research a mature and equivalent component, stimulate cross-border collaboration at all levels and convert the spin-off into hubs of innovation. Doing so requires not only a changing attitude of the authorities, but of the entire academic community of professors and researchers, administrative and technical personnel, but most importantly of the government administrations in charge of higher education. To convert public HEIs into institutions that are capable of offering graduates who possess the knowledge and skills necessary to face the challenges of today and tomorrow while ensuring sustainable economic growth in harmony with the environment, universities must be reengineered in a straightforward way. The institutional pillars subject for renewal are described in the third section of this article. To convert the reengineering of the university into a feasible project, it is essential that the ones that make the decisions open their mind and realize that universities in the 21st century require a completely different governance. Additionally, the noses of all personnel should be turned in the same direction, personnel cooperate intensely, and corruption, collusion and nepotism are eliminated.