Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - RMZ

Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin | RMZ | Members | Dr. Jelena Brankovic

Dr. Jelena Brankovic

Senior researcher

Current project
 Datafying Universities: The social construction of organizations as statistical units    
Email jelena.brankovic@hu-berlin.de   
     
Mailing address
 Unter den Linden 6
10099 Berlin		  
Office address
 Schönhauser Allee 10-11
Raum 3.54		    

Vita

Jelena Brankovic is a sociologist with an interdisciplinary background and an interest in theoretical, qualitative, and historical research. Her research focuses on the infrastructures and practices of comparison and quantification, global and transnational governance, with particular attention to organizations and the university sector.

Jelena holds a PhD in sociology from Ghent University (2018). Until 2023, she was a postdoctoral researcher at the Faculty of Sociology at Bielefeld University. She has a Master in Higher Education (jointly awarded by the University of Oslo, Tampere, and Aveiro) and has extensive experience in higher education research and policy. Between 2001 and 2006, she studied English Language and Literature at the University of Belgrade (Diploma – M.A. equivalent).

 

Research Interests

  • Infrastructures and practices of comparison
  • History and sociology of quantification
  • Global and transnational governance
  • Sociology of organizations
    Universities
  • Qualitative methods

 

Research Projects

2024-2027

 

Publications

2024
2023
2022
  • Brankovic, J., Ringel, L., & Werron, T. (2022). Spreading the gospel: Legitimating university rankings as boundary work. Research Evaluation, 31(4), 463–474. https://doi.org/10.1093/reseval/rvac035
  • Brankovic, J., & Cantwell, B. (2022). Making sense of change in higher education research: Exploring the intersection of science and policy. Higher Education, 84(6), 1207–1226. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-022-00928-3
2021

  • Brankovic, J. (2021). “Measure of Shame”: Media Career of the Global Slavery Index. In L. Ringel, W. Espeland, M. Sauder, & T. Werron (Eds.), Worlds of Rankings (Vol. 74, pp. 103–125). Emerald Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20210000074030

  • Brankovic, J. (2021). Book Review: Scott M. Gelber, Grading the College: A History of Evaluating Teaching and Learning. John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, MD, 2020. Higher Education Quarterly, 75(4), 693–696. https://doi.org/10.1111/hequ.12317

  • Brankovic, J. (2021). Academia’s Stockholm Syndrome: The Ambivalent Status of Rankings in Higher Education (Research). International Higher Education, 107, Article 107. https://ihe.bc.edu/pub/k39jq0vo/release/1
  • Brankovic, J., & Aarnikoivu, M. (2021). The Making of Early Career Higher Education Researchers: An Open-Ended Experiment in Community Building. Internationalisation of Higher Education - Policy and Practice, 1/2021, 97–109. https://doi.org/10.36197/INT.1-2021.05
  • Brankovic, J., Ringel, L., & Werron, T. (2021). Theorizing University Rankings by Comparison: Systematic and historical analogies with arts and sports. In E. Hazelkorn & G. Mihut (Eds.), Research Handbook on University Rankings: History, Methodology, Influence and Impact (pp. 67–79). Edward Elgar Publishing. https://doi.org/10.4337/9781788974981.00013
  • Ringel, L., Hamann, J., & Brankovic, J. (2021). Unfreiwillige Komplizenschaft: Wie wissenschaftliche Kritik zur Beharrungskraft von Hochschulrankings beiträgt [English: Involuntary Complicity: How Academia Contributes to the Persistence of University Rankings]. Laviathan, 49(38), 386–407. https://doi.org/doi.org/10.5771/9783748911418-386
2020

  • Ringel, L., Brankovic, J., & Werron, T. (2020). The Organizational Engine of Rankings: Connecting “New” and “Old” Institutionalism. Politics and Governance, 8(2), Article 2. https://doi.org/10.17645/pag.v8i2.2576

2019
  • Mampaey, J., Brankovic, J., & Huisman, J. (2019). Inter-institutional differences in defensive stakeholder management in higher education: The case of Serbia. Studies in Higher Education, 44(6), 978–989. https://doi.org/10.1080/03075079.2017.1405253
  • Vukasović, M., Birkholz, J., & Brankovic, J. (2019). Is the Europe of Knowledge the talk of the town? Exploring how members of the European Parliament refer to higher education. European Journal of Education, 54(1), 103–116. https://doi.org/10.1111/ejed.12329
2018
  • Brankovic, J. (2018). How do meta-organizations affect extra-organizational boundaries? The case of university associations. In L. Ringel, P. Hiller, & C. Zietsma (Eds.), Towards Permeable Boundaries of Organizations? (Vol. 57, pp. 259–281). Emerald Publishing Limited. https://doi.org/10.1108/S0733-558X20180000057010
  • Brankovic, J. (2018). The status games they play: Unpacking the dynamics of organisational status competition in higher education. Higher Education, 75(4), 695–709. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10734-017-0169-2
  • Brankovic, J. (2018). Associations of Higher Education Institutions: Types, Trends and Implications. Higher Education in Russia and Beyond, 15(1), 13–14.
  • Brankovic, J. (2018). Between world culture and local context: The university as an empowered actor in national higher education governance. Acta Sociologica, 61(4), 374–388. https://doi.org/10.1177/0001699317739951
  • Brankovic, J., Ringel, L., & Werron, T. (2018). How Rankings Produce Competition: The case of global university rankings. Zeitschrift Für Soziologie, 47(4), 270–288. https://doi.org/10.1515/zfsoz-2018-0118
2017
  • Brankovic, J., & Vukasovic, M. (2017). Partial Horizontal Differentiation in Croatian Higher Education: How Ideas, Institutions and Interests Shape the Policy Process. In H. F. de Boer, J. Huisman, J. File, M. Seeber, M. Vukasovic, & D. F. Westerheijden (Eds.), Policy Analysis of Structural Reforms in Higher Education: Processes and Outcomes (pp. 53–73). Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42237-4_3
2014
  • Brankovic, J. (2014). Positioning of Private Higher Education Institutions in the Western Balkans: Emulation, Differentiation and Legitimacy Building. In J. Brankovic, M. Kovacevic, P. Maassen, B. Stensaker, & M. Vukasovic (Eds.), The Re-Institutionalization of Higher Education in the Western Balkans: The Interplay between European Ideas, Domestic Policies, and Institutional Practices (pp. 121–144). Peter Lang. https://www.peterlang.com/document/1047542

 

Lectures

2024
  • “Making the global possible: the infrastructures for comparing universities on a global scale,” workshop: Current and Future Challenges of Indicators in Higher Education. NOEMA Business School, Paris, June 2024
2023
  • “Theorizing together” (with Tobias Werron and Leopold Ringel), symposium: Exploring the Role of Theory in the Sciences, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, October 2023
  • “‘Rankings are all bullsh*t anyway, why not do my own?’: How student influencers use genre to query rankings as a form of organisational evaluation” (with A. Van den Bossche and M. Hansen), 39th EGOS Colloquium, sub-theme 05: [SWG] Digitalization of Social Evaluations – Social Media, Platforms, and their Evaluative Roles, Calgary, July 2023
2022
  • “‘Measure of Shame’: Media career of the Global Slavery Index,” 7th Global Conference on Transparency Research, Copenhagen Business School, May 2022
  • “Spreading the rankings gospel,” 17th Workshop on New Institutionalism in Organization Theory, Madrid, 2022
2021

  • “Performing in a ranking: A historical-sociological approach to theorizing university rankings,” 33rd Annual Conference of the Consortium of Higher Education Researchers, Hong Kong, September 2021

2019
  • “Theorizing rankings: A comparative perspective,” 32nd Annual Conference of the Consortium of Higher Education Researchers, Kassel, December 2019
  • “The global coalition against corruption and the greatest sport on earth: Global fields and meta-organizations,” 35th EGOS Colloquium, sub-theme: The Intricacies of Meta-Organizations, Edinburgh, July 2019
  • “Competition in global fields: Social construction and empirical variation,” 15th Workshop on New Institutionalism in Organization Theory, Uppsala, March 2019
2018
  • “Competition in higher education: Myth and reality,” 31st Annual Conference of the Consortium of Higher Education Researchers, Moscow, August 2018
2017
  • “A world of university associations: From institutional differentiation to global diffusion,” 30th Annual Conference of the Consortium of Higher Education Researchers, Jyväskylä, August 2017
  • “Rankings in the higher education sector: Between affirmation and critique” (with Leopold Ringel), 13th Workshop on New Institutionalism in Organization Theory, Jerusalem, March 2017
2016
  • “How do global rankings produce competition between universities? A sociological view” (with Tobias Werron and Leopold Ringel), 33rd EGOS Colloquium, sub-theme: The Organizational Origins and Consequences of Competition, Copenhagen, July 2016
  • “All universities are ‘excellent’, but some are more ‘excellent’ than others: The rise of elite university associations,” 29th Annual Conference of the Consortium of Higher Education Researchers, Cambridge, September 2016
  • “Where and why do university associations emerge? The importance of fields for the expansion of organisational actorhood,” 32nd EGOS Colloquium, sub-theme: Agents, Actors and Actorhood: Institutional Perspectives, Naples, July 2016
  • “All universities are ‘excellent’, but some are more ‘excellent’ than others: The rise of elite university associations,” 12th Workshop on New Institutionalism in Organization Theory, Lucerne, March 2016
2015
  • “Is the Europe of Knowledge the talk of the town? Higher education in the European Parliament” (with Julie Birkholz & Martina Vukasovic), 28th Annual Conference of the Consortium of Higher Education Researchers, Lisbon, September 2015
  • “Elite universities as gatekeepers: Strategic demarcation of organisational fields,” 11th Workshop on New Institutionalism in Organization Theory, Vienna, March 2015

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Invited Talks

Topic: History of classifications and rankings
  • Lancaster University, Educational Research, Interdisciplinary Seminar Series, May 2023
  • University of Warwick, Warwick Business School, Accounting Group, April 2023
  • Università della Svizzera italiana, Institute of Communication and Public Policy, February 2023
Topic: Rankings, status & competition, with a focus on the university sector
  • Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Robert K. Merton Center for Science Studies, September 2022
  • Adelphi University, Critical Knowledge Forum, April 2022
  • German Rectors’ Conference (HRK), April 2022
  • emlyon business school, STORM Research Center in Strategy & Organization (with Leopold Ringel), February 2021
  • Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences & Faculty of Applied Social Sciences and Resocialisation, University of Warsaw; Seminar “Institutionalism, theory and research,” October 2020
  • Bielefeld University, Center for Interdisciplinary Research; Young ZiF seminar “Economization and quantification of science,” November 2020
  • National University of San Marcos, Faculty of Social Sciences, Global History Research Group; Webinar series “Global Studies,” June 2021
  • UCL Institute of Education; Symposium “Strategy in Higher Education: Global and national perspectives,” March 2021
  • Bielefeld University, Maria Sibylla Merian Center for Advanced Latin American Studies (CALAS); Conference “Universities in Crisis or Crisis of the University? Modes of Organizing Knowledge Production and Higher Education in the 21st Century,” November 2019
  • University of Kassel, Centre for Higher Education Research Kassel (INCHER-Kassel); INCHER-Kassel seminar series, December 2018
Topic: Field of higher education research & early-career researchers
  • University of Jyväskylä; Keynote at the annual symposium of the Consortium of Higher Education Researchers in Finland, December 2020
  • University of Lancaster, Kick-off panel in the series to celebrate 25 years of Doctoral Programme in Educational Research – Higher Education (DPER), September 2020

 

Workshops for early-career researchers

  • “Academic Writing & Publishing,” Bielefeld University, Bielefeld Graduate School in History and Sociology, June 2023
  • “Academic Writing and Why It Matters,” University of Rijeka, Doctoral School, April 2022 (with Melina Aarnikoivu)
  • “Theorizing as Positioning in Interdisciplinary Fields: Making sense of and doing theory in higher education research,” Leibniz University Hannover, Summer School in Higher Education Research and Science Studies, September 2021
  • “What does it mean to write effectively? On key elements of good academic writing,” University of Manchester, 2020 (with Melina Aarnikoivu)
  • “ECHER Academic Writing Clinic: Helping Each Other Write Better,” University of Kassel, September 2019 (with Melina Aarnikoivu)

 

Other

ORCID: 0000-0002-0485-9096
Webseite: www.jelenabrankovic.net

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