University rankings are not merely “descriptive” tools; they also operate as devices that shape expectations, organizational priorities, and strategic decisions. In this sense, rankings help to produce the world they claim to measure. Higher education is therefore influenced by a metric logic that risks narrowing the meaning of educational quality, insofar as it tends to reward what is easily commensurable. As a result, crucial dimensions of university life—such as inclusion, accessibility, and justice, which are intrinsic to education—may become marginal because they are less “countable.”

Hazelkorn (2014) notes that rankings “have encouraged the prioritization of research over teaching, and graduate over undergraduate education, with multiple implications for students and the academic profession” (p. 21). This “hierarchy” creates a structural incentive: universities tend to reallocate resources and time toward what carries greater weight in comparative measures. In the field of educational research, I highlight two related risks. The first concerns the compression of research timeframes. Educational processes are complex phenomena and typically require multi-year work and interdisciplinary approaches. Within this context, the reputational pull of rankings may inhibit the depth of theoretical research in pedagogy precisely when greater critical capacity is needed. The second risk concerns those aspects of education that are inherently difficult to submit to measurement. A clear example is the marginal position that inclusion may occupy in rankings. In the most widely used global reputational benchmarks—such as the Times Higher Education World University Rankings (THE WUR) and the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU)—inclusion does not appear to function as a central axis. More recent or multidimensional instruments (for instance, those connected to the SDGs or to European benchmarking initiatives) make inclusion more visible. However, problems of indicator quality and comparability remain. Moreover, even when inclusion becomes measurable, it can still appear as an “ornamental” element: present without transforming the criteria through which we define “quality” and “knowledge.”

Within this framework, I consider Undergraduate Research (UR) as an innovative practice for knowledge production, understood as the outcome of participatory, democratic, multi-level research—across genders and generations. Although the last two decades of scholarship document relevant benefits for students and faculty, UR can be implemented in universities as a pedagogical response:

• To the split between research and teaching, because it turns teaching into an inquiry-based practice and turns research into a formative experience;

• To counter and prevent “ornamental” inclusion, because it treats difference as a heuristic resource: more perspectives generate more questions, greater attention to the unthought, and stronger interpretive responsibility.

However, precisely because UR is often presented today as a “high-impact practice,” it must be recognized that it is not automatically inclusive. Therefore, “unequal participation remains a central issue.” In other words, if unequal access to UR is not analysed with clarity, it tends to become normalized and to remain invisible. For this reason, pedagogy has a specific task: to investigate how UR is implemented, which students gain access, and under what modalities, constraints, and outcomes.

The paper is guided by two questions:

1. How, and under what conditions, can UR respond to the reputational pressure of rankings and generate educational quality and public value that cannot be reduced to metrics alone?

2. Which elements of this response are transferable across European contexts with different evaluative cultures and governance arrangements?

It is also necessary to define and test pedagogically grounded indicators and tools—i.e., instruments that create transparency and accountability with respect to educational aims. These indicators should include, at minimum: (a) access and equity of participation; (b) quality of the experience (intensity, duration, mentoring, recognition); and (c) tangible and intangible outcomes (epistemic competencies, agency, sense of belonging, trajectories)

The methodology is situated within a qualitative-comparative design that combines document analysis and a case study, and it is guided by a Grounded Theory approach. Grounded Theory is adopted because it does not frame research as a “predefined path,” but rather as a continuously evolving map, grounded in a dialogical process between data collection, data analysis, and theory construction (Mortari & Ghirotto, 2019; Charmaz, 2014). Consistent with this framework, the analysis proceeds iteratively through coding and constant comparison, supported by memoing and the progressive refinement of interpretive categories (Glaser & Strauss, 1967; Strauss & Corbin, 1998). Phase one focuses on analysing rankings and the “regime of visibility” they produce. A content analysis will be conducted of the official methodologies of global reputational rankings (e.g., THE WUR, ARWU) and sustainability-oriented rankings/tools (e.g., THE Impact Rankings), with the aim of mapping which dimensions of quality are rewarded and with what weights, where and how inclusion and accessibility appear (or do not appear), and what organizational implications are implicitly promoted. The outcome of this phase will be a “visible/invisible” matrix, useful for interpreting the tension between reputational benchmarking and educational quality. In parallel, the review of scientific publications will draw on databases such as Scopus, ERIC, and IEEE Xplore, as well as search engines such as Google Scholar, in order to reconstruct the state of the art on rankings, metrics, inclusion, and Undergraduate Research, and to support the interpretation of findings. Phase two consists of a comparative mapping of Undergraduate Research programmes in European contexts. Through a purposive selection of 6–8 UR programmes across at least three European countries, institutional documents and programme materials will be analysed (regulations, syllabi, rubrics, access and support policies, quality documents, mentoring materials). The aim is to identify differences and recurring patterns in terms of UR typology (mentored or course-based), intensity and duration, forms of recognition, support arrangements, access criteria, and inclusion measures. Phase three corresponds to the case study within my home institution, the Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore (Brescia campus, Italy), also designed with a participatory orientation. Data collection includes semi-structured interviews with students, faculty/mentors, and governance actors (approximately 15–25), 1–2 student focus groups with attention to underrepresented groups, observation of key moments (research meetings, tutoring), and the collection of artefacts (posters, micro-articles, logbooks). Students will also be involved as co-researchers in guided reflection and feedback activities (member checking), in order to strengthen transparency and interpretive quality.

The paper investigates which paradigms shape the implementation of Undergraduate Research (UR), how they do so, and with what effects on access, the quality of the experience, and institutional recognition. The first expected outcome is an interpretive map of the mechanisms through which rankings and indicators reshape university priorities: which factors make UR attractive in terms of visibility, reputation, and funding, and which factors, instead, distort it—by reducing it to a performative label, fostering elitist selection, and marginalising inclusion. Second, the study will produce a typology of UR outcomes across three levels: Students: development of epistemic competencies (question formulation, evidence handling, argumentation), expansion of perceived opportunity horizons (imagined educational and career pathways), and increased critical agency and capacity to question the world. Faculty/mentors: shifts in mentoring practices, in relationships with student researchers, and in teaching repertoires; with potential effects on motivation, professional trajectories, and research productivity. Institutions and local communities: strengthening of more responsible and dialogic knowledge ecologies, with consequences for public credibility and social impact. A third expected outcome is the identification of resistances to change: organisational constraints (time, workload, incentives), cultural resistances, access barriers, and evaluative resistances. The ultimate aim is to propose pedagogically grounded indicators for UR transparency and accountability (equity of access, quality of the experience, tangible and intangible outcomes), in order to support UR as a transformative practice rather than a mere reputational signal.

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