A Comprehensive Evaluation Framework to Assess the Sustainable Development of Schools within a University: Application to a Chinese University

Abstract

Higher education institutions have long played a critical role in society. The sustainable development of universities—wherein they consistently maintain a high level of performance in teaching, research, innovation, and stewardship of talent—is increasingly viewed as critical to driving social change and building a sustainable future. Every year, many organizations publish rankings to assess and compare the performance of universities across a nation or the world. However, few of these rankings focus on the differences in performance between individual schools within a particular university, which is crucial to improving the quality of the institution as a whole. This study attempts to fill this knowledge gap by proposing a comprehensive evaluation framework to allow for systematic and standardized analysis of performance at the school/college level according to any combination of relevant indicators. The framework builds upon existing work related to the Technique for Order of Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) and Grey Relational Analysis (GRA) methods and proposes an improved model that mitigates defects in previous models while enhancing interpretability and stability. An applied example in which this framework is used to evaluate schools of humanities and social sciences disciplines at Wuhan University in China is provided. The results of the applied example show that the framework enables an in-depth analysis of performance levels through multiple perspectives, thereby providing valuable insights for formulating targeted strategies to improve school performance and enhance the sustainable development of higher education institutions.