2018 Horizon Scan
Not familiar with the GIN Project? We are a research group that looks at global ratings and rankings from a network perspective. Get an overview of our work here.
In 2018, the vibrant ecosystem of global ratings and rankings is more important than ever to decision-makers in business, development, and foreign policy. From behemoths like the (much cited) Ease of Doing Business Index, to more bespoke rankings like the Competitive Industrial Performance Index, organizations across the world work scramble every year to publish indices. Rendering the world measurable is a big enterprise. In 2017, the GIN Project team at Innovations for Peace and Development introduced a new way of looking at the ratings and ranking ecosystem. In 2018 we will demonstrate why our new method is valuable and begin to explore global indices on a whole new scale.
Researching Interdependence
This year will see us cleaning our data set, refining our codebook, and expanding upon our initial selection of indices. But we’re going to be doing more than updating spreadsheets. This semester our team is focusing on what new insights we might be able to draw from the Global Indices Network. To what extent are ratings and rankings borrowing information from other publishers? Do elements of an index’s methodology affect its position in the network? Does like borrow from like? Does borrowing leave an index vulnerable to including bad information “from above”? How, if at all, is power identifiable in the network? What do we mean by power, anyway?
Those questions only scratch the surface. As the first research group dedicated to taking a system-level perspective on global ratings and rankings, there is no shortage of questions we want to address. Subscribe to us here on Medium, and follow us on Twitter, to stay up-to-date on our work.
Finding our Voice
This year we want to start conversations about global ratings and rankings. We want to increase the level of transparency in this space and challenge the status quo. 2018 must be the year we quit trying to consider each index in a vacuum and began looking at the bigger picture. Our team is already hard at work developing original content for this channel and our twitter presence.
Making it META
Our team is also in the early stages of developing our own rating system! Lovingly titled Measuring and Evaluating the Transparency of Assements, the META index will score global indices by the transparency and reproducibility of their methodologies.
Check in often because we plan on moving fast. For more information about the project, reach out to us on Twitter or via the IPD website.
