Effects of Language and Culture on University Research Performance

Language and cultural ties drive the international flow of ideas, human capital and productivity. Professor Tumlinson presents three related projects that examine the role of these soft factors in the research performance and international rankings of universities. First, in a mature working paper, he shows that global universities’ top journal output declines dramatically as the “genetic” differences between their local language and English increase. Second, in ongoing work in progress, he shows that universities in non-English speaking countries experience significant research performance gains when they switch the language of instruction to English. Third, he introduces a broad agenda and flexible new approach to analyze the effect of culture on the movement of and connections between people and ideas, while holding the myriad unobservable of institutional factors constant, by exploiting the evolution of European sovereign borders over the last two millennia (Funded by British Academy grant 211453).

A key part of this discussion looks at journals and their publications; why certain pieces are more likely to be published and perform better, and their relationship to university performance.

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