All arguments, including the reasoning on which they are based, begin with one or more assumptions, aka presuppositions or things that are taken for granted. Summarizing, the argument behind this query is that "universities are expected to contribute to national/global economic development … and the role they play in international research." This is one very big assumption. Does it hold?

PS: We still have no consensus on the purpose of higher education. But Frederick Lawrence, former president of Brandeis University and current secretary and CEO of America’s oldest and most prestigious honor society—Phi Beta Kappa—has spoken about the need for American universities to refocus their aim through a single lens: the discovery and dissemination of knowledge for the betterment of … communities and society writ large.

Universities should be judged based on whether they have a clearly stated purpose that helps society and on how well they live up to that purpose.

All great universities across the globe are interconnected and have sustained collaborative research. Such collaborations are not influenced by national considerations excepts when dealing with national defense and highly sensitive research funded by national agencies.

Generally all universities have three focal points, which is teaching, research and extension. I think this is first localized before attempting to solve general common world problems. What I mean is this. The University first responsibility would be to solve domestic problems affecting their immediate community. Unfortunately, despite the peculiarities of those problems, the solution proffered is largely not of interest to the international community because of localization. Hence, such research outcomes don't get published in international reputable Journals, so enjoys low patronage and citation.

Sadly, only publications in indexed journals are used for world and regional university assessment.

Aside localization of research, cost of publication have prevented publications in high impact factor journals for researchers in many countries of African and Asia. Very few universities have grants to support very high publications fee, hence authors in this countries are forced to patronize journals they can afford.

Also, due to absence of inadequate infrastructure and funding, many good research output from these part of the world have been rejected for fear of using wrong methods.

Hence, many things comulates to reduce the competitive advantage of universities in Third World countries when it comes to university ranking.

However, it think the current system of assessment is not too fair. It largely judge the university by the kind of journal it researchers publish in and not on the quality of research published. Although as a rule of thumb, we can think that a highly reputable journal would always publish high impact research, so also is a reputable scholars contribution in a low impact factor or non indexed journals.

Universities should be judged on the basis of academic activities and results

@Kenneth M. I totally agree with you. Unfortunately, University ranking is not on the bases of how "good" teaching is done, but research output in terms of publications. That is why I concluded that the "current system of assessment is very flawed" and need to be re-examined. More so, I earlier mention the three focal responsibility of every University in my response. The first on my list was "teaching". I only dwell more on the research aspect been more relevant to the subject matter been discussed. There are people with the school of thought that the quality of research determines the quality of teaching, however this is seldom the case in many Third World countries.

Teaching, Research and extension are the three pillar of any university. But judgment should be based on basic infrastructure facilities like hostels, laboratories, qualified staff, placements, post graduate research should be innovative one etc. and accreditation should be strictly follow to maintain level of education.

@ Prashant Balasaheb Pawar, Unfortunately this is not so. The quality of research publication is usually the focal point for assessors. They believe this determines to a large extent the quality of teaching and extension. It a wrong assertion cuz many things come to play especially for researches in low income countries. Their wage is barely enough and they still struggle to do good enough research worthy of publication. However, publication fee and other bottleneck hinder them from patronising some very reputable journal considered during University assessment. It is noteworthy that some Journal also offer waivers in such scenarios.

Universities must be closer to the maket: Universities have to be more proactive, providing real actions and not only excellent ideas. Projects are usually designed by people with knowledge, but farway from passion and context.

People coming from other areas, with different knowledge and mindset, may do the link: professors must accept this. Time in University and Institution are not similar to higher and better knowledge