The effect of national higher education initiatives on university rankings

National higher education initiatives are government-led strategies designed to enhance university quality, international ranking, and competitiveness through targeted policy measures and investments. In order to improve human capital and global competitiveness, many countries worldwide such as China, Japan, Russia, and Germany have implemented national higher education initiatives in recent years. This study used panel data from the top universities in the QS ranking and ARWU ranking to evaluate the impact of these initiatives on university rankings using a Staggered Difference-in-Differences Model and explore the underlying reasons for heterogeneity in effectiveness across different regions and countries. It found that national higher education initiatives have a significant positive impact on universities’ rankings by improving 12.1 to 17.7 places in QS and ARWU rankings respectively. Compared to European universities, universities in Asia-Pacific region improved rankings more obviously. The findings suggest that developing countries can learn from the experiences of other countries in implementing national higher education initiatives and improving higher education quality through encouraging competitiveness while offering autonomy, optimizing higher education management model, enhancing regular quality evaluations, and dynamic withdrawal mechanism.