ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Educ.
Sec. Higher Education
Evaluation of Research Group Visibility, Governance, and Engagement in the Top 500 Global Universities
Provisionally accepted
- 1The University of Jordan School of Dentistry, Amman, Jordan
- 2The University of Jordan School of Medicine, Amman, Jordan
- 3School of Agriculture, The University of Jordan, Aljubeiha, Jordan
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This exploratory quantitative study how the visibility of Research Groups (RGs) is structured, supported, and applied across the QS Top 500 universities (2026), reflecting a global shift toward groups of research that serves society rather than solely academic prestige. The analysis investigates the presence of formal governance frameworks, dedicated resources, visibility, interdisciplinary and international collaboration, student involvement, and external engagement with industry, government, and communities. It also compares patterns across global regions and between top-200 and 201–500 ranked universities. Findings disclosed that while most universities host RGs with defined leaders, themes, and student participation, fewer than 40% employ formal policies or centralized oversight. Less than half of RGs build active partnerships beyond academia, secure external funding, or systematically share their achievements publicly. Mid-ranked universities display higher RG visibility and structured integration than many elite universities, which often rely on legacy laboratories and reputation rather than formal group frameworks. Universities are encouraged to strengthen RG policies, expand collaboration, and improve visibility to enhance both research impact and alignment with their broader missions.
Keywords: Evaluation, governance, higher education, Qs, Research group, visibility
Received: 05 Oct 2025; Accepted: 15 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Sawair, Obeidat and Ghazzawi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Hadeel ALi Ghazzawi
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