Australia has more than doubled its share of the world¡¯s research superstars since its richest universities opened the floodgates to international students in 2014.

A??by University of Sydney sociologist Salvatore Babones links Australia¡¯s snowballing Chinese enrolments with its increasing proportion of highly cited researchers (HCRs) and its rapid rise up the international league tables ¨C particularly the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU).

The report, to be published on 15 August, tracks Australia¡¯s share of HCRs since international university rankings emerged in 2003. HCRs, who are identified each year by analytics company Clarivate, produce multiple articles?that rank among the most cited 1 per cent of papers in their fields.

Australia¡¯s share of HCRs rose modestly over the decade to 2014, from 1.71 to 2.02 per cent. But over the following five years, it soared to 4.36 per cent.

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This coincides with a period of?rampant recruitment?of international students, particularly from China, by research-intensive universities on Australia¡¯s eastern seaboard.

Dr Babones¡¯ report estimates that Chinese enrolments have reached 26 per cent of student numbers at Australia¡¯s top-ranked Group of Eight (Go8) universities. The proceeds from their fees have bankrolled rankings success, which in turn attracts more foreign students, particularly from China.

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The rankings rise owes much to the burgeoning number of HCRs ¨C a metric that constitutes 20 per cent of universities¡¯ ARWU scores ¨C with circumstantial evidence suggesting many of them were recruited from overseas.

The coronavirus-induced suspension of international student flows has now plunged universities into financial crisis ¡°as they struggle to maintain their outsized research ambitions¡±, the report says.

Dr Babones said there was nothing wrong with cashed-up universities hiring HCRs. ¡°The problem is going out to get the money just so you can hire HCRs. It¡¯s driving this irresponsible recruitment of Chinese students.¡±

This shifts universities¡¯ priorities, Dr Babones claims, from cultivating their homegrown research capability to hiring superstars ¨C specifically in the 21 fields in which HCRs are tallied, which exclude the humanities, arts?and law. Dr Babones¡¯ analysis found that of 162 HCRs in Go8 universities, 158 were in the sciences and just four in the social sciences.

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¡°The research funding coming in from Chinese students is not going to academics to improve their research,¡± he said. ¡°It¡¯s going towards buying researchers to improve the universities¡¯ rankings. It¡¯s not that the world is benefiting because there¡¯s more research being done. It¡¯s simply reshuffling the deck in favour of Australia.¡±

The report says that if Australia¡¯s most fancied universities can only finance their rankings ambitions by selling more than one-quarter of their university places to Chinese students, ¡°it is perhaps time for them to reconsider those ambitions¡±. University executives¡¯ bonuses should be made public and never tied to international rankings, it says.

Details of ¡°unadvertised, non-competitive ¡®strategic hires¡¯ of specifically targeted academics¡± should also be made public, it adds.

The report also says Chinese student numbers should be reset at levels ¡°consistent with universities¡¯ educational missions¡±. It recommends limiting students from individual overseas countries to 5 per cent of overall numbers, with foreigners constituting up to 15 per cent of enrolments in any institution and 20 per cent in any course.

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While such benchmarks are low by Australian standards, Dr Babones said only a handful of universities in North America would exceed them.

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com