Moscow International University Ranking "The Three University Missions": issue 2018 released

The list of world's best universities according to Moscow International University Ranking "The Three University Missions" featuring 333 institutions from 53 countries was published on 28 November 2018. The pilot issue of the ranking of 200 universities was released in December 2017.

Moscow International University Ranking is a fundamentally new academic ranking, evaluating all the three key university missions: education (weight 45%), research (weight 25%), and, uniquely in the history of rankings, interaction with society (weight 30%). The ranking uses a number of new criteria calculated on the basis of objective data, and does not use any subjective reputation surveys. The ranking methodology has had a wide public discussion in Russia and abroad with a total of over 100 contributing universities. The ranking expert council brings together 25 experts from 12 countries.

President of IREG Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellence Luiz Claudio Costa noted that the Moscow Ranking starts a new generation of academic rankings, the second generation. "The rankings of higher education institutions are around 15 years old, and, to some extent, almost all of them are based mainly on indicators of research and institutional reputation", noted Costa. "It is time for a new generation of rankings that try to look more closely at the link between university and society. Also, it is time to look, and we know how difficult it is, for new indicators of teaching quality."

MosIUR has shown that Europe has the highest concentration of strong universities. 107 of 333 world's best universities are located in continental Europe, and the rest 29 in the United Kingdom. The best British universities, the University of Cambridge and the University of Oxford, have been ranked 6th and 7th respectively. As for the universities of mainland Europe, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich ranks the highest (24th).

The University of Tokyo (13th) and Peking University (25th) have been ranked the highest among the Asian universities.  The University of Melbourne is number one in Oceania (51st position in the global table). The University of Cape Town (141th) has been recognized as the best university of Africa, and the National Autonomous University of Mexico  (147th) ranks the highest among Latin American universities.

American universities are prevalent in the top 20 of the ranking. Harvard University, MIT, and Yale University were ranked the top 3 universities of the ranking. The successes of North American universities in global rankings are largely due to their excellent research performance. MosIUR is no exception. Thus, the universities of the USA prevail in the Research sub-ranking. American universities' research budget per staff member is 2 times greater than the average of Japanese universities, 2.5 times greater than that of British universities, and 4 times greater than that of German universities.

The ranking has shown that the strongest aspect of Eastern European and Russian universities is their educational activity. Its high level helped three Russian universities gain a foothold among the top 100 universities in the ranking: Lomonosov Moscow State University has gone up by 2 positions from the 25th to 23rd rank, St. Petersburg State University ranks 61st (72nd in the pilot issue), MIPT has improved its position from 73rd to 65th. "The Three University Missions ranking relies on objective indicators, this fact objectively proving a high level of Russian education", comments Viktor Sadovnichiy, President of Russian Rectors Union. "It is the first rankings to use truly multi-faceted evaluation of universities. All the data are remotely available, everything can be checked."

Commenting on the prospects of the rankings, Association of Rating Makers CEO Dmitry Grishankov noted: "Trust is the most important issue when it comes to promoting the ranking and growing its influence around the world. And one can already feel it, at the international level too. The Moscow Ranking has passed the PwC audit. We have become the pioneers of the "third mission" in academic rankings, and now Russia is becoming the world's main  platform for discussing the interaction between universities and society – on November 30, the most renowned world experts will gather in Moscow at "Third University Mission" forum."

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The ranking project was initiated by the Russian Rectors Union. The ranking is operated by Association of Rating, Ranking, and Other Performance Evaluations Makers (ARM), the members of which are leading ranking and research centres.

The project is supported by Clarivate Analytics, providing data and metrics from InCites and Global Institutional Profiles Project (GIPP).

The project is supported by the Volnoe Delo Foundation for social innovation.

The project is implemented using the grant of the President of the Russian Federation for the development of civil society provided by the Presidential Grants Foundation.

The pilot version of the Moscow International University Ranking "The Three University Missions" was published in December 2017. In May 2018, the rating successfully passed an independent audit by PricewaterhouseCoopers Audit, part of PwC's global network. The audit included an evaluation of the 14 procedures used to create the Three University Missions ranking, ranging from drawing up the short-list to calculating the final results.

The ranking table and methodology are available on the Moscow International University Ranking website www.mosiur.org.

Moscow International University Ranking "The Three University Missions" 2018: Top 30