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Russian universities improve positions on global ranking

The 2020 Times Higher Education (THE) Global Subject Rankings based on regularly processed data from 3,500 universities around the world have been announced at the 19th Conference of Project 5–100 today.

In Psychology, the Higher School of Economics is in rank 151–175, like last year. The Moscow State University shifted slightly down, to 151–175 compared to last year’s 101–125. In Life Sciences, Moscow State University ranks 251-300 (up from 310-400 last year). Kazan Federal University showed a noticeable growth to 401–500 compared to last year’s score of 501–600.

According to Phil Baty, editor-in-chief of THE World University Rankings, Russian universities hold a stable position and they obviously have improved their marketing and branding. Yet, they have not been able to achieve a breakthrough like in China. According to Phil Baty, investment in China’s higher education was so high that it led to major qualitative changes.

What prevents Russian universities from rising higher? A shortage of funding, low citation of scientific works, and too few publications written in collaboration with foreign colleagues.

According to the Director of SKOLKOVO Institute for Public Strategy Andrei Volkov, over the six years of Project 5–100, much has been done to make leading Russian universities more competitive in the global educational services market: the number of references to Russian universities on international rankings has increased significantly, and we are much closer to the ambitious goal of exporting domestic higher education – there are more foreign students at our universities  now (for example, the share of foreign students at MEPhI National Research Nuclear University rose to 23% from none at all at the beginning of the project). This year, 26 Russian universities are participating in Project 5–100; next year, there will be 30 universities.

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