The construction of transnational and national systems for comparing qualities of universities are presented and discussed. In focus are two important university ranking lists--those produced by the Shanghai Jiao Tong University and by the "Times Higher Education Supplement". A Swedish example concerning the making of a resource distribution system based on performance indicators is presented. The Swedish performance indicator system and the international university ranking lists contain similar technologies for comparing universities and are to a large extent based on services of the same multinational corporations. From this point of view ranking lists and systems of performance based governance can be conceived of as globalisation at work. (Contains 6 tables and 10 notes.)