On 19 September, the Moscow international university ranking “Three university missions” published their list of the 1,200 best world universities. This is a fundamentally new academic ranking that assesses three key university missions: education, research, and interaction with society.
This year, the ranking included 1,200 universities from 79 countries, including 74 Russian universities. Voronezh State University took a position in the 1001–1100 range among world universities and 48–58 among Russian universities.
This year, the expert committee consisted of 25 experts from 16 countries. The sources of information included the data provided on the websites of the universities and national authorities and from independent international sources: Clarivate Analytics (the data and metrics provider from InCites and Global Institutional Profiles Project (GIPP)); Elsevier (the owner of the bibliographic and abstract database Scopus); the online learning platforms of massive courses Coursera and edX; the search engines Google, Yandex, Baidu; the social networks Facebook, Twitter, VK, Sina Weibo; the websites of international students’ competitions; and websites of scientific awards included in IREG List of International Academic Awards.
According to VSU Rector, Dmitry Endovitsky, the ranking is quite simple. At the same time, it provides a deep and extensive analysis of factors. Apart from criteria describing the research of academic staff and students and how attractive the university is for international students, the ranking takes into consideration the internet-based audience of the university, its involvement in social networks, and the number of online courses uploaded to global internet platforms. VSU’s experience in the ranking was summarised in the monograph “Three university missions: education, research, society” which was published in April 2019.
