On September 19th, the Three Missions University Ranking, also known as the Moscow International University Ranking (MosIUR) was published. Presented there were the 1200 best universities from 79 countries, including 74 Russian higher education institutions. This year, South Ural State University was included in the list of the best higher education institutions around the world according to MosIUR for the first time; in the global rankings, SUSU was placed within the 801-900 interval, and got a position in the range of 33-39 among Russian universities.
The Moscow International University Ranking was established by the Russian Union of Rectors and is operated by the Association of Rating Agencies (ARA), the members of which include leading rating and research centres (Expert RA, VCIOM, Reputation, etc.). MosIUR evaluates the three key missions of universities – education, science, and interaction with society. The initiative of creating this rating is supported by leading universities of Russia, China, India, Iran, Turkey, and Japan. The scoring methodology has been elaborated through a large-scale public discussion in Russia and abroad, in which more than 100 universities participated. The participants of the MosIUR Expert Council included 25 experts from 16 countries.
“The main goal of universities is to perform training of highly-qualified specialists and create new scientific knowledge. Results in these areas make it possible to complete a complex analysis of a university’s activities, which is the basis of international ratings. But one should never forget that universities are directly tied to society, and the interaction with society indicator is evaluated equally with science and education in the Moscow International University Ranking. Entering this rating means that the university is truly involved in the development of both the region and the country,” comments SUSU Rector, Aleksandr Shestakov.
When compiling the Moscow International University Ranking, data from reputation polls is completely excluded, since they can distort a university’s true position in the academic and research community. The list of sources for MosIUR is much longer than those traditionally used in existing popular ratings. The sources included openly available data from universities’ official sites and from national authorities as well as data from independent international sources: Clarivate Analytics (supplier of data and metrics from InCites and Global Institutional Profiles Project (GIPP)); Elsevier (owner of the bibliography and abstract database Scopus); online education portals Coursera and edX; search engines; social media; and sites of scientific awards from the IREG List of International Academic Awards list.
As a note, in September 2019, SUSU was also included in the THE World University Rankings-2020 from the respected ratings agency Times Higher Education for the first time. In 2018, the university was rated in the 800-1000 bracket of the best universities around the world according to the QS World University Rankings (part of the British consulting company Quacquarelli Symonds). These ratings, alongside the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) are considered the most prestigious international ratings.