News
The pilot ranking of BRICS universities
The pilot ranking of BRICS universities comprises educational institutions of ten countries.
Most of the ranked universities (207) are located in China. The second (161) and third (93) largest numbers of featured HEIs are situated in Russia and India. Brazil, where 55 HEIs are based, comes next. This BRICS country hosts most of the top-performing non-Eurasian HEIs. There are as many as 27 ranked universities in Iran. The definitive list contains fewer than 20 universities from other member states.
The ranking of BRICS HEIs is headed by Peking University, M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University, and Tsinghua University. The University of Cape Town, ranking 18th, is acknowledged as the best one in South Africa. The Indian Institute of Science located in Bengaluru scores the highest (25th) among Indian HEIs. The 28th place of the final ranking belongs to King Saud University, which is the leading Saudi Arabian higher school. The University of São Paulo, ranking 39th, is a victorious one in Brazil. The American University in Cairo (63d) and the United Arab Emirates University (64th) are the top HEIs based in Egypt and the UAE, respectively. Tehran University of Medical Sciences taking the 90th place has outperformed all other Iranian HEIs. The best Ethiopian HEI called Addis Ababa University has entered the #351–400 interval group of the final ranking of BRICS HEIs.
Transparency Report released
Transparency Report has been developed as a pilot review of the compliance with the “Principles of the BRICS countries in the implementation of activities for Public Ranking/Rating Systems and Other Assessments of Higher Education Institutions (Universities)”.
The draft Principles were presented and discussed at the Congress of the Russian Union of Rectors on 4 July 2024, which recommended submitting them for adoption to the BRICS University Rectors' Forum, scheduled to take place in October 2024. Go to principles.
EIGHTH Edition of The Three University Missions Moscow Ranking released
This year, the Moscow International University Ranking “The Three University Missions” (MosIUR) included 2000 higher education institutions (HEIs) from 112 countries.
The USA is most widely represented in the ranking with 257 universities out of the top 2,000. China is second (237), and Russia is the third (152).
For the first time in eight years, the leader of the ranking changed – the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) took first place, displacing Harvard University. As the authors of the ranking explained, this happened due to the growth of the indicators of the “education” group.
Top is followed by Oxford (#3), Cambridge (#4) and the University College London (#5). Best results among Asian universities were demonstrated by the University of Tokyo (#10) and Peking University (#22).
About the rating "The Three University Missions"
The Moscow International Ranking “The Three University Missions” (MosIUR) is a fundamentally new academic ranking that, for the very first time in international practice, assesses all three key missions of a university: education, science and interaction with society. Over 100 universities took part in the large-scale public discussion of the ranking methodology. The ranking uses only objective criteria, based on official data (including universities’ public reports), as well as data from reputable international information providers. Reputational surveys are excluded completely.
The rating was initiated by the Russian Union of Rectors and the Association of Rating Makers.
The pilot version of the “Three Missions” was published December 2017. Following versions came out November 2018, September 2019. Starting from 2020, the rating is published annually in August.
The ranking was audited by the PricewaterhouseCoopers Audit, part of the global PwC network.
Seventh Edition of The Three University Missions Moscow Ranking released
The Moscow International Ranking “The Three University Missions” (MosIUR) is a fundamentally new academic ranking that, for the very first time in international practice, assesses all three key missions of a university: education, science and interaction with society. This year, MosIUR included 2,000 higher education institutions (HEIs) from 112 countries. 2022, the ranking was made up of 1,800 HEIs. The expansion of the list has been made possible due to increased transparency and competitiveness of numerous universities, mainly from BRICS countries.
The USA is most widely represented in the ranking with 252 universities out of the top 2,000. China is second (232), and Russia is the third (154), followed by the UK (109) and Japan (101).
The upper part of the table is dominated by US universities, same as last year. Harvard (#1) and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) (#2) topped the ranking, followed by Oxford (#3), Cambridge (#4) and the University College London (#5). Best results among Asian universities were demonstrated by the University of Tokyo (#11) and Peking University (#18).
The best university in Australia and Oceania is the University of Melbourne (#43), and in Latin America – the National Autonomous University of Mexico (#107). The University of Cape Town scored the highest score among African universities (#159). The Lomonosov Moscow State University took the leading position among Russian universities (#17).
Asia leads by the number of universities among all other macro-regions with 637 universities, i.e., almost a third of the entire list. Europe is second with 621 universities. North America a lags behind Europe and Asia, representing 288 universities in the ranking. South and Central America - 162 universities. In 2023 Africa for the first time equaled Australia and Oceania in terms of representation in the ranking - 48 universities each. Three African countries made their debut in the 2023 ranking – Algeria, Mauritius and Malawi, whose universities had not previously appeared in the list, but now occupy places in the interval group 1751-2000.
One of the main trends is the strengthening of Asian universities. Over the year, their share in the ranking increased by 2 percentage points and reached 31.9%. At the same time, the result of European universities decreased by the same amount, amounting to 31.1%. For the first time since the Three University Missions ranking was compiled, Asia has surpassed Europe in terms of the number of participants in the list of the best universities on the planet (this statistic does not take into account the universities of Turkey and Russia, as these countries are located in two parts of the world at once). Asian universities on average outperformed their European counterparts in terms of the growth of indicators measuring the success of performance in student competitions, citation rate of scientific papers and specific research budget. At the same time, Asian universities have not yet become highly competitive in terms of export of educational services - on average, the share of foreign students in Asian universities is about three times lower than in Europe, and over the year the average value in Asian universities decreased by 0.3%, while in European universities - increased by 0.2%.
Speaking about the progress of Asian universities in the ranking, we shoud say about the main locomotive countries: in 2023 they were China and India, which achieved the best results in terms of the number of new entrants in the world top (+30 for China and +20 for India). The success of Chinese universities is largely associated with the improvement of the second, scientific mission indicators - the growth of citation rate of publications and increase in research budget per employee. At the same time, in the countries of the Anglo-Saxon world (UK, USA, Canada, Australia, etc.) these indicators have slightly decreased on average. As for universities in India, the country's universities have made the most progress in terms of "third mission" indicators - for example, the number of online courses has increased by 34% on average. In addition, India is among the top countries in terms of university funding per student (purchasing power parity).
The ranking made it possible to calculate the volume of global exports of high-quality educational services: 3.7 million foreign students study at the top 2000 universities. The largest number of them choose universities in the UK (14%), followed by the USA (13%), Australia (8%), Germany (7%) and Russia (5%).
About the rating "The Three University Missions"
The Moscow International Ranking “The Three University Missions” (MosIUR) is a fundamentally new academic ranking that, for the very first time in international practice, assesses all three key missions of a university: education, science and interaction with society. Over 100 universities took part in the large-scale public discussion of the ranking methodology. The ranking uses only objective criteria, based on official data (including universities’ public reports), as well as data from reputable international information providers. Reputational surveys are excluded completely.
The rating was initiated by the Russian Union of Rectors and the Association of Rating Makers.
The pilot version of the “Three Missions” was published December 2017. Following versions came out November 2018, September 2019. Starting from 2020, the rating is published annually in August/
The ranking was audited by the PricewaterhouseCoopers Audit, part of the global PwC network.
THE “THREE UNIVERSITY MISSIONS” DISCUSSED WITH FOREIGN UNIVERSITIES AND EMBASSIES
On September 29th, the Association of Rating, Ranking, and Other Performance Evaluations Makers (ARM) together with the Russian Union of Rectors (RUR) and RAEX Rating Agency held a webinar for foreign ranking users, such as embassy officials and representatives of universities, participants of the sixth edition of the “Three University Missions” ranking. More than 300 participants from all over the world were accredited for the webinar, characterizing a high interest towards the ranking among foreign and Russian specialists and authorities.
The Moscow International Ranking “The Three University Missions” (MosIUR) has established itself as an effective tool for evaluating the performance of global educational institutions. The participation of universities in this ranking indicates quality of education, scientific activity as well as the degree of public involvement in higher education — or, in other words, the impact of a university on society.
Universities of the world are more and more often using ranking results in strategic and development decision-making whereas graduates are using rankings as an important means for choosing universities of their future studies.
Embassies, on the other hand, use rankings to make recommendations to their countries’ authorities on sending students to Russian universities. Officials of more than 80 foreign embassies have therefore been invited to the webinar.
The sixth edition of MosIUR was released on August 30th and included 1,800 universities from 102 countries, making it the most representative ranking in the world. A special feature of MosIUR is that it uses objective data only and does in no way depend on political situations and constraints. In addition to the two traditional university missions (education and science), the ranking also considers the third mission — interaction with society or, in other words, the usefulness of a university to its country.
Working languages of the webinar were English and Russian. Experts of RAEX and ARM provided answers on frequently asked questions, discussed methodological specifics and fundamental principles of the “Three University Missions” Ranking Ecosystem, and possibilities of its practical application. Main results of the 2022 rankings along with trends and features were highlighted, as well.
Webinar materials:
SIXTH EDITION OF THE THREE UNIVERSITY MISSIONS MOSCOW RANKING RELEASED
This year, the Moscow International University Ranking “The Three University Missions” (MosIUR) included 1,800 higher education institutions (HEIs) from 103 countries. 2021, the ranking was made up of 1,650 HEIs. The expansion of the list has been made possible due to increased transparency and competitiveness of numerous universities, mainly from BRICS countries.
The USA is most widely represented in the ranking with 253 universities out of the top 1,800. China is second (173), followed by Russia, the UK and Japan with 146, 108 and 101 universities, respectively.
The upper part of the table is dominated by US universities, same as last year. Harvard (#1) and MIT (#2) topped the ranking, followed by Cambridge (#3), Oxford (#4) and the University College London (#5). In mainland Europe, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich scored the highest rank (#11). Best results among Asian universities were demonstrated by the University of Tokyo (#12) and Peking University (#14). The Lomonosov Moscow State University took the leading position among Russian universities (#18). The best university in Australia and Oceania is the University of Melbourne (#43), and in Latin America — the National Autonomous University of Mexico (#106). The University of Cape Town scored the highest score among African universities (#157).
Europe leads by the number of universities among all other macro-regions with 593 universities, i.e., almost a third of the entire list. Asia is second with 539 universities (almost 30%) in the ranking. North America lags behind Europe and Asia, representing 15.9% universities in the list. Russia accounts for 8.1% of the world’s best universities, surpassing Latin America (7.2%).
Asia, Russia, and mainland Europe are the main beneficiaries of the ranking list expansion from 1,650 to 1,800 universities: these countries managed to increase their presence in the ranking by 42, 34 and 27 universities, respectively. Latin America, too, strengthened its position with +20 universities compared to last year. It is of note, that almost a half of the new entrants to the ranking — 64 universities — are in BRICS countries.
Main drivers of Chinese HEIs in the rankings were the increase in scientific publication citations, as well as the increase in university websites traffic. India increased its presence in the ranking due to narrowing the gap with the global average within the “Education” indicator group, namely, in the amount of student wins in international student contests and share of international students. Universities in Brazil have improved their scores in terms of staffing and financial resources. As for new entrants from Russia, their greatest strengths are a high level of internationalization and the student to academic staff ratio.
Table 1. The Three University Missions International University Ranking, 2022: top 20
Rank | University | Country |
---|---|---|
1 |
Harvard University |
USA |
2 |
Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
USA |
3 |
University of Cambridge |
UK |
4 |
University of Oxford |
UK |
5 |
University College London |
UK |
6 |
Stanford University |
USA |
7 |
Columbia University |
USA |
8 |
University of Pennsylvania |
USA |
9 |
University of Chicago |
USA |
10 |
Yale University |
USA |
11 |
ETH Zurich – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich |
Switzerland |
12 |
University of Tokyo |
Japan |
13 |
University of Michigan |
USA |
14 |
Peking University |
China |
15 |
Johns Hopkins University |
USA |
16 |
Duke University |
USA |
17 |
University of Edinburgh |
UK |
18 |
Lomonosov Moscow State University |
Russia |
19 |
New York University |
USA |
20 |
University of Washington |
USA |
Source: Association of Rating Makers (ARM)
The full issue of the ranking (in Russian) is published by RAEX Rating Review. For more details, please visit www.mosiur.org
About the project
MosIUR is a fundamentally new academic ranking that, for the very first time in international practice, assesses all three key missions of a university: education, science, and interaction with society. The ranking methodology was subject to a large public discussion in Russia and abroad with a total of over 100 contributing universities. MosIUR uses only objective criteria, based on official data, as well as data from reputable international information providers. Reputational surveys are excluded completely.
The ranking was initiated by the Russian Union of Rectors and is operated by the Association of Rating Makers (ARM), whose members include leading rating and research centers.
The pilot version of the “Three Missions” was published in December 2017. Following versions came out November 2018, September 2019, August 2020 and August 2021, with the latest — sixth — edition released on August 30, 2022. The ranking was successfully audited by the PricewaterhouseCoopers Audit, part of the global PwC network.
The Three University Missions Moscow Ranking 2021 Released
The Moscow International University Ranking “The Three University Missions” (MosIUR) included a record-high list of 1.650 higher education institutions in its 2021 edition, making it the most representative among popular academic rankings. There are altogether 97 countries and territories represented in the 2021 ranking. Europe leads by the number of universities among all other macro-regions with 568 universities in the ranking, i.e. more than a third of the entire list. Asia is second with 493 universities (almost 30%). North America lags behind with 272 universities (16.5%). Russia accounts for 6.8% of the world’s best universities; this number is slightly higher than Latin America’s (6.6%).
Harvard and MIT topped the “Three Missions” ranking in 2021, same as last year, followed by Cambridge, Oxford and the University College London. Best results among Asian universities were demonstrated by the University of Tokyo (12th place) and Peking University (15th place). The Lomonosov Moscow State University took the leading position among Russian universities (19th place). The best university in Australia and Oceania is the University of Melbourne (40th place), in Latin America — the National Autonomous University of Mexico (117th). The University of Cape Town scored the highest score among African universities — 161st.
The USA is most widely represented in the ranking with 239 universities out of the top 1.650. China is the second (144), Russia, same as last year, is on the third place with 112 universities, followed by Great Britain (106).
China, USA, Spain and Russia are the main beneficiaries of the ranking list expansion from 1.500 to 1.650 universities: these countries alone managed to increase their presence in the ranking by more than 10 universities each. Europe and Asia increased their presence in the ranking by 70 and 32 new universities, respectively.
In European countries, positive dynamics are connected predominantly with improvement of the indicators of the first — educational — mission: the staff-to-student ratio, university budget to student ratio and the share of international students. Spain, Italy and Germany, in particular, are showing growth of these indicators. For China, the main factors of growth were the increase of the number of massive open online courses (MOOCs) and citation rates of scientific papers. As for the United States, the strengths of American universities remain stable over the years: budget per student, research’s revenue per employee, scientific paper citation rate, as well as the number of prestigious academic awards among employees and alumni.
Russia is most competitive on global scale when assessed by the following criteria: “Number of students winning international student contests”, “Number of MOOCs” and “Share of international students”. Students of leading Russian universities win prestigious competitions twice as much as students from universities of other countries. For the first time Russia outperformed the global average in terms of the international students share: in the 2021 ranking, Russia shows 11.9% by this criterion, compared to the 11.7% global average of the ranking’s participants. As for the number of MOOCs, available on 54 popular platforms, Russia exceeded the global average by a whole 43%, leaving behind the UK, Canada and France in terms of the weighted number of courses on leading platforms (taking into account their attendance rates). Here, Russia has been outbested only by China and the USA.
About the Three University Missions rankings
Moscow International University Ranking is a fundamentally new academic ranking, the first to evaluate all the three key university missions: education, research, and social impact. The ranking methodology has had a wide public discussion with a total of over 100 contributing universities. The ranking methodology includes only objective indicators aproved by an international expert group. Reputation surveys are entirely excluded from consideration.
The ranking project was initiated by the Russian Union of Rectors. 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 implemented using provided by the Presidential Grants Foundation.
The project is supported by Clarivate Analytics, providing data and metrics from InCites and Global Institutional Profiles Project (GIPP).
The pilot issue of The Three University Missions Moscow International Universuty Ranking was released in December 2017, the second one, in November 2018, the third one, in September 2019, and the fourth one, in August 2020. The ranking passed an independent audit by PricewaterhouseCoopers Audit, part of PwC's global network.
The complete content of the ranking issue in Russian is published in RAEX Rating Review (For usage of the content a link to www.raex-rr.com is obligatory). Multilingual website: www.mosiur.org.
The Three University Missions Moscow International University Ranking, 2021: top 30
Rank | University | Country |
---|---|---|
1 | Harvard University | USA |
2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | USA |
3 | University of Cambridge | United Kingdom |
4 | University of Oxford | United Kingdom |
5 | University College London | United Kingdom |
6 | University of Pennsylvania | USA |
7 | Stanford University | USA |
8 | Columbia University | USA |
9 | University of California, Berkeley | USA |
10 | University of Chicago | USA |
11 | Yale University | USA |
12 | University of Tokyo | Japan |
13 | Duke University | USA |
14 | ETH Zurich – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich | Switzerland |
15 | Peking University | China |
16 | University of Michigan | USA |
17 | Johns Hopkins University | USA |
18 | Cornell University | USA |
19 | Lomonosov Moscow State University | Russia |
20 | The Chinese University of Hong Kong | China/Hong Kong |
The Three University Missions Moscow Ranking 2020 Released
The Three University Missions Ranking 2020 features 1500 universities representing 97 countries. Most of the listed universities are European: 493, or almost 33% of the ranking table. Asia is neck-and-neck with Europe, accounting for 32% of the featured list. North America follows with almost 17%. Russia and Latin America are represented by 7% of the world's best universities each. Oceania and Africa come last with 3% and 2% of the featured universities respectively.
"The Three University Missions ranking 2020 lists 1500 universities from 97 countries, making it the world's most representative academic ranking. Russia is represented by 101 universities on the list. Russia, the United States, and China made the global top 3 by number of featured universities. Russia's leading universities have improved their positions", said Viktor Sadovnichy, Rector of Lomonosov Moscow State University, President of Russian Union of Rectors. "It is objective and clear evidence of global competitiveness of Russia's higher education."
Just like last year, the upper part of the table is dominated by U.S. universities. Their dominating positions, however, were slightly challenged: for the first time ever, Cambridge University has entered top 3, followed by Oxford University. The top two British universities have pushed last year's bronze medalist, University of Pennsylvania, to fifth rank.
The outcome of university mission one, Education, suggests a parity between Europe and North America: each of the macroregions is represented by 13 institutions in the education subranking. Cambridge University, École Polytechnique (France), and Lomonosov Moscow State University have shown best results in education among European universities; MIT and Harvard University are North America's leaders. The strongest point of the American universities is financial resources, whereas European universities' strong points clearly are a high staff-to-student ratio and high competitiveness of the students. European university students are much more successful at prestigious international contests than their American counterparts.
Education quality is the strongest suit of Russian universities. As many as five Russian higher education institutions entered the top 100 education subranking list: Lomonosov Moscow State University, St. Petersburg State University, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, HSE University, and MEPhI. Russian universities are world leaders in student contests: on average, representatives of Russian universities become student contest prizewinners 5 times more often than U.S. students and 4 times, than British students. Russia, Germany, and China are running neck-and-neck in academic staff to student ratio, followed by the United Kingdom. In recent years Russian universities have been showing notable success in attracting international students: the featured Russian universities' average is 11.6%, whereas the U.S. universities have 10.8%.
The research mission evaluation indicates unrivaled performance by English-speaking countries. The top 30 is dominated by U.S. universities, accompanied by Canadian, British, and Australian ones. The success of the United States in the Research subranking table is attributable to large research budgets and high citation indices. Russia is represented in the top of the Research subranking table by Lomonosov Moscow State University, which has entered the research top 100 for the first time this year, and Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology and St. Petersburg State University in research top 200.
The third mission evaluation has shown a rich geographical diversity of leaders. The University and Society subranking table leaders features representatives of North America (U.S. and Canada), Latin America (Mexico, Brasil), Europe (Russia, U.K.), Asia (mainland China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Japan), and Australia.
The third mission indicators became an important contribution to the growth of Russian universities in the 2020 ranking table. Russia achieved the most progress in the number of massive open online courses (MOOCs) and the size of internet audience. Russian universities have shown a growth in MOOCs on Coursera and edX by 77% over last year. The greatest contribution to the overall growth is from HSE University, St. Petersburg State University, and Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.
The Three University Missions is the first global university ranking to respond to the changes in global education due to the COVID-19 pandemic. "A broad range of indicators made it possible for us to evaluate the changes in the relationship between university and society: increasing number of online-courses, shrinking internet audience of universities in the countries attractive for international students. These data have already had an impact on the ranking issue we are publishing", noted Association of Rating Makers CEO Dmitry Grishankov. "It seems like first-generation rankings, which largely depend on international integration indicators, will have to profoundly change their methodologies. International mobility has decreased, and many people abroad have realised that the percentage of international students and citation indices are not everything one needs to evaluate a university's true power".
Richard Holmes, University World News editor, commented on the impact of the pandemic on academic rankings: "As universities seek to redefine themselves or change their priorities, rankings will follow suit, although perhaps not so quickly. It is probable that eventually there will be a shift from rankings that emphasise research, resources, international orientation and reputation to those that attempt to measure inclusiveness, environmental impact, social issues or the student experience."
About the Three University Missions rankings
Moscow International University Ranking is a fundamentally new academic ranking, the first to evaluate all the three key university missions: education, research, and social impact. The ranking methodology has had a wide public discussion with a total of over 100 contributing universities. The ranking methodology includes only objective indicators aproved by an international expert group. Reputation surveys are entirely excluded from consideration.
The ranking project was initiated by the Russian Union of Rectors. 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 implemented using provided by the Presidential Grants Foundation.
The project is supported by Clarivate Analytics, providing data and metrics from InCites and Global Institutional Profiles Project (GIPP).
The pilot issue of The Three University Missions Moscow International Universuty Ranking was released in December 2017, the second one, in November 2018, and the third one, in September 2019. The ranking passed an independent audit by PricewaterhouseCoopers Audit, part of PwC's global network.
The complete content of the ranking issue in Russian is published in RAEX Rating Review (For usage of the content a link to www.raex-rr.com is obligatory). Multilingual website: www.mosiur.org.
The Three University Missions Moscow International University Ranking, 2020: top 30
Rank | University | Country |
---|---|---|
1 | Harvard University | United States |
2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | United States |
3 | University of Cambridge | United Kingdom |
4 | University of Oxford | United Kingdom |
5 | University of Pennsylvania | United States |
6 | Yale University | United States |
7 | Stanford University | United States |
8 | University of California, Berkeley | United States |
9 | Columbia University | United States |
10 | University of Chicago | United States |
11 | University College London | United Kingdom |
12 | Duke University | United States |
13 | Johns Hopkins University | United States |
14 | ETH Zurich – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich | Switzerland |
15 | Peking University | China |
16 | University of Tokyo | Japan |
17 | University of Michigan | United States |
18 | Cornell University | United States |
19 | University of California, San Diego | United States |
20 | University of Colorado Boulder | United States |
21 | Lomonosov Moscow State University | Russia |
22 | Northwestern University | United States |
23 | University of Edinburgh | United Kingdom |
24 | The Chinese University of Hong Kong | China/Hong Kong |
25 | Princeton University | United States |
26 | University of Zurich | Switzerland |
27 | California Institute of Technology | United States |
28 | New York University | United States |
29 | University of Geneva | Switzerland |
30 | University of Toronto | Canada |
1200 World’s Best Universities: The Three University Missions Ranking 2019 Released
The third issue of The Three University Missions Moscow International University Ranking has been released. It features a total of 1200 universities from 79 countries. The number of universities listed in the rankings table in 2019 significantly increased compared with the year before, when the published rankings list included 333 positions.
The 2019 rankings found that the largest number of the world's best universities are based in Europe: 414, or almost 35% of the published rankings table. Asia is the runner-up region with 29% of the universities featured in the rankings, followed by North America with 20%. Russia accounts for 6% of the world's best universities, thus being ahead of entire Latin America (5%) and Oceania (4%).
The top three universities 2019 are Harvard University, Massachussets Institute of Technology, and University of Pennsylvania.
The top British universities, Cambridge and Oxford, rank fifth and sixth respectively. Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich), ranked 25th, is number one in continental Europe. Asia's frontrunners are University of Tokyo (ranked 15th) and Peking University (ranked 16th).
"The Moscow Ranking opens a new generation of academic rankings, the second one", noted Luiz Claudio Costa, President of IREG Observatory on Academic Rankings and Excellence. "Almost all of the existing rankings are based mainly on indicators of research and institutional reputation. It is time for a new generation of rankings that try to look more closely to the link between university and society."
2019 became the first year for the preliminary ranking results to undergo international assessment.
"The Three University Missions ranking is gaining an increasing amount of attention from international scholars," notes Dmitry Grishankov, CEO of the ranking's operator Association of Rating and Ranking Makers. "When we asked international experts to comment on the preliminary results, we didn't even expect them to take a keen interest in our ranking and prompt response to our inquiry. The experts' responsiveness helped us verify data on the universities based in 16 countries, including the United States, the United Kingdom, China, Germany, Italy and others. International assessment covered almost 60% of the featured universities, and it's a big success."
The full rankings table, current methodology, and analytical commentary to the ranking results are available on the project's website www.mosiur.org.
The Three University Mission Moscow Ranking 2019: Top 30
Rank | University | Country |
---|---|---|
1 | Harvard University | United States |
2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) | United States |
3 | University of Pennsylvania | United States |
4 | Yale University | United States |
5 | University of Cambridge | United Kingdom |
6 | University of Oxford | United Kingdom |
7 | Stanford University | United States |
8 | University of California, Berkeley | United States |
9 | University of Chicago | United States |
10 | Duke University | United States |
11 | University College London | United Kingdom |
12 | Columbia University | United States |
13 | University of Michigan | United States |
14 | Cornell University | United States |
15 | University of Tokyo | Japan |
16 | Peking University | China |
17 | University of Colorado Boulder | United States |
18 | University of California, San Diego | United States |
19 | Northwestern University | United States |
20 | University of Edinburgh | United Kingdom |
21 | The Chinese University of Hong Kong | China/Hong Kong |
22 | Lomonosov Moscow State University | Russia |
23 | California Institute of Technology | United States |
24 | Princeton University | United States |
25 | ETH Zurich – Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich | Switzerland |
26 | University of Geneva | Switzerland |
27 | Johns Hopkins University | United States |
28 | University of California, Los Angeles | United States |
29 | Washington University in St Louis | United States |
30 | University of Warwick | United Kingdom |
***
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 Russian ranking and research centres.
The project is supported by Clarivate Analytics, providing data and metrics from InCites and Global Institutional Profiles Project (GIPP).
The pilot issue of The Three University Missions ranking was released in December 2017, the second issue, in November 2018. In 2018 the ranking successfully passed an independent audit by PricewaterhouseCoopers Audit, part of PwC's global network.
A Study on International Student Contests Released
The Association of Rating Makers, the publisher of Moscow International University Ranking, prepared a study on international student contests based on the materials of the second issue of the Third University Mission rankings.
Wins in International Student Contests by Students is an innovative teaching measurement of the Moscow ranking. The Three University Missions is the only world academic rankings to embed international student contests data into the ranking model.
The authors argue that international student contests are the only objective tool for comparing university student competitiveness on a global level. This is, among other things, due to world universities taking a great interest in such competitions: the most prestigious ones, including ACM ICPC, in which the Lomonosov Moscow State University team secured the champion title earlier this year, attract participants from over 100 countries.
University students from China, Germany, Poland, Russia, the U.K., and the U.S. were the most successful participants of international contests. Students from Russia, China, and Poland demonstrated the most successful performance in IT contests. Russia, the Netherlands, and Poland led the math competitions. In the filed natural sciences leaders were China, the U.S., and Canada. In the humanities most successful were students from Australia, the U.S., and the U.K.
The study used the data on prizes won by university students in 14 prestigious international contests in 2013 — 2017.
MosIUR 2019: New Shortlist Features over 1500 Universities
The shortlist for the third issue of Moscow International University Ranking "The Three University Missions" has been drafted. It includes 1640 higher education institutions representing the five continents and a total of 112 countries and territories.
Most of the shortlisted universities are from Asia and Europe, followed by North America, Latin America, Oceania, and Africa.
Compared with the 2018 rankings shortlist, more Asian universities are represented: their share in the total number of shortlisted institutions has reached that of European ones.
The countries most represented in the shortlist are the U.S., China, Japan, the U.K., Germany, France, India, South Korea, and Russia.
The shortlisting methodology was based on representation principles. When drafting the shortlist we took into account the contribution of countries into the world GDP and the number of universities represented in the respective national and international rankings.
Now data collection is ongoing. Preparation of the Three University Missions ranking is planned to be finished in May 2019.
"The Third University Mission" Conference Gathers Experts from 23 Countries
"The Third University Mission" international conference, dedicated to the development of cooperation between universities and society, was held from November 30 to December 1, 2018 in Moscow. The conference events were attended by over 260 delegates from 23 countries, including Argentina, Brazil, Indonesia, India, Italy, Poland, Russia, Spain, United States, and United Kingdom. The great interest in the conference was driven by the growing need in studying the third mission of the university, i.e. its contribution to the development of society.
The conference was timed to the release of the new issue of Moscow International University Ranking "The Three University Missions", which was published end of November. "The Moscow Ranking opens a new generation of academic rankings, the second one", admitted the ranking's novelty Luiz Claudio Costa, President of IREG Observatory on Academic Rankings and Excellence. "Almost all of the existing rankings are based mainly on indicators of research and institutional reputation. It is time for a new generation of rankings that try to look more closely to the link between university and society."
The Three University Missions ranking results were presented by President of Russian Rectors Union Viktor Sadovnichy. He said the new global ranking issue featured universities from 53 countries. Deputy Minister of Science and Higher Education of Russia Marina Borovskaya noted that back as the Rector of the Southern Federal University she took part in multiple discussions of the ranking. According to her, a ranking is a support and decision-making system, a prioritising method for work planning, it is a back-up for university management, as well as managing the education system within a region or country. Head of the Federal Service for Supervision in Education and Science of Russia Sergey Kravtsov assured that his organisation would use The Three University Missions ranking for university accreditation purposes.
The discussion of the third mission continued at the thematic sections of the conference. The first section focused on continuing education, online courses and new technologies in education. The section was moderated by Thomas D. Parker, Senior Associate Emeritus at the Institute of Higher Education Policy (IHEP), Washington, D.C. (USA) and Alexey Demidov, Rector of St. Petersburg State University of Industrial Technologies and Design.
President of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation (USA) Judith S. Eaton noted that the third mission, a university's contribution to society, has become increasingly recognised by researchers as one of the key functions of universities in recent years. Therefore the Moscow Ranking initative was timely. This is an attempt to move away from the elitist approach in the evaluation of universities, implying special attention to the social responsibility of higher education.
Mark O'Brien, Head of Education and Policy Evaluation at the University of Liverpool, spoke about the UK experience in spreading of continuing education. In recent years, due to the increase in the cost of training, the number of students on postgraduate programmes began to decline, and changing the situation is one of the difficult tasks for the authorities of the country.
The thematic section also featured presentations by Alex Usher, President of Higher Education Strategy Associates and Editor-in-Chief of Global Higher Education Strategy Monitor (Canada); Cengiz Acarturk, Associate Professor of the Graduate School of Informatics of the Middle East Technical University in Ankara (Turkey); Patricio Montesinos, Head of Unit, UPV Continuing Education Center, Universitat Politècnica de València (Spain), as well as representatives of Russian universities.
The second section of "The Third University Mission" conference was devoted to the transfer of knowledge. Rector of National Research Nuclear University MEPhI Mikhail Strikhanov, one of the section's moderators, made a presentation on the university's achievements in the respective area. The other moderator of the section, John T. Green, Life Fellow at Queens' College, Cambridge University, devoted his speech to the experience of Imperial College London, which since the early 2000s has stated the objective of increasing the commercialisation of technologies.
Having studied the experience of Italian universities, Rector of Link Campus University Claudio Roveda came to the conclusion that academia and business have largely contracting approaches that impede the effective transfer of knowledge. In order to bridge this gap, it is necessary to establish communication and achieve coordination between universities and companies in the real sector of economy.
More reports on knowledge transfer were made by: Viktor Koksharov, rector of the Ural Federal University, Zsolt T. Kosztyán, Associate Professor and head of Department of Quantitative Methods, University of Pannonia; Senior Research Fellow, MTA-PE Budapest Ranking Research Group (Hungary); Weiping Wu, Professor at Columbia University (United States).
The third thematic section of the conference was dedicated to social involvement of universities. The section moderators, Mirko Degli Esposti, Deputy Rector of the University of Bologna (Italy), and Barasbi Karamurzov, President of the Kabardino-Balkar State University (Russia), emphasized the multifaceted nature of universities and expressed their dissatisfaction with how fragmentary the assessments in popular rankings are. Including third university mission based indicators in the evaluation system could improve the situation.
The speakers have raised the rankings issue multiple times. Gero Federkeil, Head of International Rankings at the Centre for Higher Education (Germany), spoke about the European ranking system U-Multirank and acknowledged that the most poorly investigated rankings area is the social responsibility of universities. The participants of the discussion agreed that the evaluation of university impact on the social and cultural life of the country is a very ambitious and unstandard research problem. Mikhail Myagkov, Professor at the University of Oregon (USA), carried on the discussion speaking about the possibilities of using Wikipedia, the free multilingual online encyclopedia, for the purposes of third mission performance evaluation.
The discussion of social involvement of universities continued by reports made by Paul Blackmore, Professor, International Centre for University Policy Research, King’s College London (United Kingdom), Solomon A. David, Associate Professor & Head of Masters of Education Programme, Faculty of Education, The British University in Dubai (United Arab Emirates), Nidhi S. Sabharwal, Associate Professor, Centre for Policy Studies in Higher Education (CPRHE) (India), and Agus Suwignyo, Senior Lecturer at Gadjah Mada University (Indonesia). The section also featured presentations of Russian university rectors.
The final day of the conference included workshops by invited experts. Konuralp Pirinççi's contribution was devoted to the role of the university technoparks in supporting entrepreneurial activity in Turkey. The other workshop named "Accreditation and Long-Term Development of Universities’ Socio-Economic Impact" was held by Thorsten Kliewe, Chair of Accreditation Council for Engaged and Entrepreneurial Universities (Netherlands).
Summing up the results of the third mission discussions, Managing Director of IREG Observatory Kazimierz Bilanow expressed his gratitude to all the invited experts, as well as to the organisers of the conference. CEO of the Association of Rating Makers Dmitry Grishankov concluded that the conference clearly demonstrated a great interest within global community in the third mission of universities and expressed hope that such events would be held on a regular basis in the future.
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 (141st) 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 Sadovnichy, 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
Rank | University | Country | Score |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Harvard University | United States | 90.82 |
2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) | United States | 90.72 |
3 | Yale University | United States | 85.14 |
4 | University of Pennsylvania | United States | 84.92 |
5 | Stanford University | United States | 82.97 |
6 | University of Cambridge | United Kingdom | 82.89 |
7 | University of Oxford | United Kingdom | 80.76 |
8 | University of California, Berkeley | United States | 80.57 |
9 | Columbia University | United States | 79.29 |
10 | University of Chicago | United States | 78.58 |
11 | Cornell University | United States | 77.64 |
12 | Duke University | United States | 76.66 |
13 | University of Tokyo | Japan | 76.45 |
14 | University of Michigan | United States | 75.02 |
15 | University of California, San Diego (UCSD) | United States | 74.96 |
16 | California Institute of Technology (Caltech) | United States | 74.65 |
17 | Northwestern University | United States | 74.51 |
18 | Princeton University | United States | 74.27 |
19 | University of Colorado Boulder | United States | 73.78 |
20 | University College London | United Kingdom | 73.49 |
21 | University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) | United States | 73.34 |
22 | Johns Hopkins University | United States | 72.32 |
23 | Lomonosov Moscow State University | Russia | 71.42 |
24 | ETH Zurich | Switzerland | 71.23 |
25 | Peking University | China | 71.17 |
26 | New York University | United States | 69.97 |
27 | Georgia Institute of Technology | United States | 69.23 |
28 | Carnegie Mellon University | United States | 69.18 |
29 | The University of Edinburgh | United Kingdom | 69.16 |
30 | University of Washington | United States | 68.91 |
Event Announcement: International Conference "The Third University Mission", 30th November - 1st December 2018, Moscow
The organising committee of the international conference on “The Third University Mission” is pleased to announce that the conference will be held at Lomonosov Moscow State University, Russia, 30 November – 1 December 2018.
The event is hosted by the Association of Rating Makers, Russian Union of Rectors, and IREG Observatory on Academic Rankings and Excellence.
The main goal of the conference is to determine effective tools and practices that promote cooperative development between universities and society.
It is our pleasure to invite international higher education researchers, experts, and policy makers to participate.
Please contact the organising committee by email contact@mosiur.org to learn more and to apply for participation.
The rector of Lomonosov Moscow State University spoke about the Three University Missions ranking development prospects
The Moscow International University Ranking "Three University Missions" became one of the major topics at the extended session of the Russian Union of Rectors council, which took place in Moscow on July 18, 2018. The Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation Tatiana Golikova, the Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation Mikhail Kotyukov, and other public officers took part in the event.
The rector of Lomonosov Moscow State University Viktor Sadovnichiy, came forward with the proposal to take account of the Moscow International University Ranking "Three University Missions" (MosIUR) when accessing the activities of the Russian universities during accreditation, directed to the Ministry of Science and Higher Education on behalf of the Russian Union of Rectors. The ranking will continue to develop: the launch of the second version, which will include the top 300 universities throughout the world, is scheduled for November 2018. The ranking has been accepted in the international community, noted Mr. Sadovnichiy. He cited the opinion of Luiz Claudio Costa, the President of the international organization IREG Observatory, who said the MosIUR "initiates the new, second generation of academic rankings" (IREG is one of the most prestigious international associations of academic ranking compilers and users).
To conclude the discussion, the Deputy Chairman of the Government of the Russian Federation, Tatiana Golikova, noted the viability of using the Three University Missions ranking for assessing the competitive position of the Russian universities.
The Moscow International University Ranking gives a presentation of the Three University Missions at IREG-9, an international conference in Hasselt, Belgium
The Association of Rating Makers, operator of the Three University Missions ranking, presented the results of their initial ranking to the participants of the IREG-9 Conference and shared their plans for project development.

The international IREG-9 Conference, 'Ranking and Accreditation - two roads to the same goal?', took place on 23-25 May 2018 in Hasselt, Belgium. The conference was organized by Hasselt University and the IREG Observatory, the international association of rating makers and higher education institutions. 130 delegates from 30 countries participated in the conference, including: representatives of academic ratings and accreditation agencies, the rectors of higher education institutions and science centers, researchers and international experts on higher education.
The international presentation of the Three University Missions ranking took place during the course of the conference. The representatives of the most renowned global academic rankings took part in the presentation, including: U.S. News, U-Multirank, ARWU, Green Metric, a number of national ranking projects as well as several dozens of universities from around the globe located in Asia, Europe, Africa, North America and South America. The CEO of the Association of Rating Makers (ARM), the President of the RAEX Rating Agency (Expert RA), Dmitry Grishankov, and ARM leading analyst Kirill Ivanov presented the results of the initial ranking and the conclusions drawn from the analysis of the data obtained. Also presented in the report were the results of the initial ranking's independent audit and the plans regarding project development, in particular the publication of the updated version of the ranking in 2018.
The ARM representatives gave a detailed overview of the rating model and rating indicators, elaborating on the 'University and Society' indicator group. Conference participants were particularly interested in the methodological approach to calculating the indicators based on data from open sources, such as Wikipedia, open online course platforms, and search engines.
The following members of the rating expert board took part in the international presentation: professor of both the University of Oregon and the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology (Russia), Mikhail Myagkov, the senior research scientist of the Institute for Higher Education Policy (U.S.), Thomas Parker, and the Academic Vice Rector of IESB University in Brazil (and former Brazilian Education Minister), Luiz Claudio Costa, who was elected the new President of IREG as per the conference results. The experts shared their experience of participation in the rating's methodology development and their vision of how the methodological approaches of the Three University Missions can influence academic rating development trends. Professor Luiz Costa noted that the interest in the indicators which assess a university's social role by the academic society and the academic rating makers will continue to grow.
The details of the independent audit of the initial 'Three University Missions' ranking, which had been successfully completed a week before, were presented by Alexei Ivanov, a PwC partner. He noted that the audit evaluated the 14 procedures used by the Association of Rating Makers to create the ranking, which range from drawing up a short-list of universities to calculating the final results.
The Three University Missions Ranking passes independent audit
The first Moscow International University Ranking "The Three University Missions", published in December 2017, has successfully passed an independent audit.
The preparation process for the inaugural ranking of The Three University Missions, created by the Association of Rating Makers, was audited by PricewaterhouseCoopers Audit, a member of the PwC global network.
PwC is one of the largest global networks of companies providing consulting and auditing services. PwC companies have conducted an academic ranking audit before: Times Higher Education, an international ranking, underwent a similar procedure in 2017.
The audit was conducted in accordance with the International Standard on Assurance Engagements (ISAE) 3000, issued by the International Auditing and Assurance Standards Board. 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) was conducted as part of the audit.
The report from the independent audit organization has been published in English and Russian on the ranking's official website.
Association of Rating Makers CEO elected to IREG executive committee
Dmitry Grishankov, CEO of the Association of Rating Makers, has been re-elected to the executive committee of the IREG Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellence (IREG), an international association of ranking organizations and universities.
The governing board members were re-elected at a regular IREG meeting in Hasselt University, Belgium, on May 25, 2018. Luiz Claudio Costa (Brazil) became the President and Waldemar Siwinski (Poland) was named Vice President of IREG. Despite the yearly increase in the number of IREG members, the organization has decided to reduce the number of executive committee members from 11 to 9. The purpose is to increase management efficiency and give governing board members a more significant role.
The new executive committee reflects the rise in IREG prominence, both geographically (the executive committee now includes representatives of Brazil, China, Denmark, Great Britain, Italy, Poland, Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the USA) and in terms of representation. The executive committee now includes the directing managers of the most famous university rankings, such as ARWU (Shanghai Ranking), QS, and US News, as well as representatives of university directors, such as the University of Bologna.
According to Dmitry Grishankov, the IREG has established itself as an organization setting progressive standards for the creation of academic rankings. The IREG's current objectives include securing its influence among leading universities and government authorities throughout the world, as well as establishing contact with leading international employers. The new executive committee possesses significant influence. Its members recognize the importance of their objectives and are able to take meaningful steps towards accomplishing them.
About IREG:
The IREG Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellence is an international non-profit association of ranking organizations, universities and other bodies dealing with university rankings and academic excellence. Its goal is to strengthen public awareness and understanding regarding a range of issues related to university rankings and academic excellence. The association was founded as the International Ranking Expert Group (IREG), which met for the first time in 2002. This informal team was transformed into a non-profit organization, the IREG Observatory, in 2009. The organization is registered in Brussels, Belgium, and its head office is located in Warsaw, Poland.
Members of the Global Universities Association Discuss Ranking Methodology
The results of the Moscow International University Ranking's pilot edition were presented to members of the Global Universities Association on May 21, 2018 in Moscow. The event was devoted to issues surrounding the promotion of universities in the ratings and was of particular relevance for the members of "Project 5-100", a project set up to improve the competitiveness of Russian universities.

Representatives of leading Russian universities: MIPT, National Research Nuclear University MEPhI, Higher School of Economics, Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, Tomsk State University, ITMO University, and others, took part in the working group's meeting, held at MEPhI University. The ranking operator, the Association of Rating Makers, was represented by Deputy General Director Dmitry Kabalinsky and leading expert Alexey Khodyrev.
The participants in the meeting expressed a high degree of interest in the ranking system and agreed that the creation of a fundamentally new academic ranking system is an extremely important undertaking. Much of the meeting was devoted to discussing the methodology of the ranking; a number of views were expressed regarding the system of criteria used, especially concerning how the "third university mission" can be quantified. As a result of the discussion, it was agreed that the members of the Global Universities Association will continue to liaise with the ranking operator and make proposals aimed at improving the ranking and its promotion, both in Russia and abroad.
MosIUR 2018: applications are now being accepted
The Association of Rating Makers has announced that applications have begun to be accepted for participation in the Moscow International University Ranking "The Three University Missions" for 2018. Questions and applications are to be sent to contact@mosiur.org. The application form must be sent before May 31, 2018.
The ranking participant questionnaire is now available for download on the official rating site www.mosiur.org. The completed questionnaire should be sent to the Association of Rating Makers by June 30.
Publication of the updated ranking of "The Three University Missions" is set for autumn.
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In 2017, on the initiative of the Russian Union of Rectors, the Association of Rating Makers prepared and published a pilot version of the Moscow International University Ranking "The Three University Missions". It featured 200 universities from 39 countries.
It represented a fundamentally new ranking system, which took into account the features of universities that are important for national economies.
The universities were assessed according to 17 criteria arranged into three groups: Education, Research, and University & Society. Moscow International University Ranking was the first global academic ranking to evaluate university's interaction with society. The ranking was based on objective and verifiable data only. No reputation surveys were used.
Announcement of event: presentation of the ranking system "The Three University Missions" in Hasselt on May 23, 2018
On May 23, 2018, there will be an international presentation of the Moscow International University Ranking "The Three University Missions" in Hasselt (Belgium). The event will be held as part of the international conference IREG 9 "Rankings and accreditation: two roads to the same goal?"
The event will present the key methodological approaches of "The Three University Missions", the results of the pilot ranking and plans for further development of the project. International experts will give their feedback, and the ranking compilers will talk about participation in the ranking in 2018 as well as answering questions from university representatives.
The Three University Missions ranking has been recommended for assessing the activity effectiveness of the Russian universities.
The president of the Russian Union of Rectors, Viktor Sadovnichiy, gave a report on the initial Moscow International University Ranking "Three University Missions" version development to the President of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, at the XI Congress of the Russian Union of Rectors, which took place in St. Petersburg on April 26, 2018. Mr. Sadovnichiy reported that the initial ranking comprised universities from 39 countries, including 13 universities in Russia. The representatives of the academic community actively participated in the process of the methodology development. In particular, more than 20 experts from different countries, including Canada, the USA, Great Britain, India, China etc, were invited to take part in developing the principles of assessing university activities, noted Mr. Sadovnichiy.
More than 600 university rectors and chairmen participated in the congress, including about 50 guests from abroad (Azerbaijan, Armenia, Iran, China, Slovenia, Japan etc).
The Moscow International University Ranking "Three University Missions" has been frequently mentioned during the XI Congress of the Russian Union of Rectors. Notably, the general director of the Association of Rating Makers, Dmitry Grishankov, addressed the project implementation process and the features of the ranking at the International Activities of the Russian Universities section.
The XI Congress of the Russian Union of Rectors was concluded with a resolution to submit a request directed to the Ministry of Science and Higher Education to consider the possibility of using the Moscow International University Ranking "Three University Missions" as a tool for assessing the activity effectiveness of the Russian universities.
The results of the pilot ranking system "The Three University Missions" have been presented at the international seminar in New Delhi
On 22nd - 23rd February 2018, an international seminar on quality and high standards in higher education was held in the cultural centre, India Habitat Centre (New Delhi, India). The event was jointly organised by the Indian Center for Policy Research in Higher Education (CPRHE), the National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA) and the British Council.

Around 150 delegates from 13 countries took part in the event: The USA, the UK, Australia, Afghanistan, Mauritius, Malaysia, Nepal, the UAE, Thailand, France, Sri Lanka, as well as India and Russia. Participants were comprised of representatives from universities, colleges, research centres, public authorities, accreditation agencies, professional associations and international organisations such as UNESCO and the World Bank.
During the course of the plenary session, the lead analyst of the Association of Rating Makers, Kirill Ivanov, presented a report on the results of the pilot rating "The Three University Missions", which aroused great interest among the participants of the seminar. In particular, he noted that the Moscow International University Ranking, for the first time in the practice of compiling international academic rankings, examines in detail the influence of universities on society, given the number of outstanding graduates of a university, its contribution to accessible online education and much more. During the following discussion, participants noted the innovative nature of the Moscow International University Ranking and the importance of taking into account the public role of a university in order to provide an objective assessment of its activities.
During the plenary session, Vice-Chancellor of NIEPA, Director of CPRHE, Professor N.V. Varghese stressed the growing need among the academic community and public authorities for a variety of tools (academic rankings included) to assess the quality of higher education, in order to better understand the system as it continuously grows and develops.
As a result of the event, a number of participating experts in the field of higher education, showed interest in collaboration with the Association of Rating Makers (which oversees the rating system "The Three University Missions") to further improve the rating methodology and analytical work. The representatives of leading universities in India and a number of other countries, in turn, expressed their willingness to participate in the next ranking in 2018.
In Hungary an international discussion took place regarding the pilot version of the "The Three University Missions" ranking
From 14th to 16th February 2018, a series of seminars, organized by the Eötvös Loránd University (ELTE), were held in Budapest with the participation of IREG Observatory experts. One of the main topics of discussion was the recently published Moscow International Ranking of Universities "The Three University Missions". The participants showed great interest in the new approach for compiling educational rankings. In particular, many speakers expressed the opinion that it is very important to evaluate not only the quality of students' training, but also the benefits that the university and its graduates bring to their country and region.
The events were attended by international experts in rating compilation, the heads of leading Hungarian universities, representatives of the Hungarian government and invited experts. Participants of particular note who took part in the discussions included the General Director of the Association of Rating Makers (Dmitry Grishankov from Russia), the Vice-President of IREG Observatory, the President of the Perspective Foundation (Waldemar Siwinski from Poland), and Head of International Rankings at the CHE Centre for Higher Education (Gero Federkeil from Germany).
Hungary was represented at the event by: László Borhy, President of ELTE, Péter Szalay, Vice President of ELTE, Imre Hamar, Vice President of ELTE, György Fábri, chairman of the Research Group of the Faculty of Education and Psychology of ELTE, Tamás Martinek, Vice President for Public Relations of University of Szeged, László Csernoch, Vice President for Science of University of Debrecen, János Levendovszky, President of the Scientific Committee of the Senate of The Budapest University of Technology and Economics, Zsolt Enyedi, Vice President of CEU, György Bagdy, Vice President for Science of Semmelweis University, Márton Barta, Director of Strategy of Corvinus University, Gergely Kováts, Managing Director of Center for International Higher Education Studies of Corvinus University, András Telcs, chairman of the Ranking Research Group of Pannonia University, Ádám Török, general secretary of Hungarian Academy of Sciences.
On 16th February, a meeting of international experts was convened with Professor László Palkovics, a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences and the State Secretary for Education of the Hungarian Ministry of Human Resources. Within the framework of this meeting, the topic of "The Three University Missions" was also discussed. The Secretary of State expressed great interest in having Hungarian universities participate in the new ranking system, as well as in the possible use of the ranking results for the development of the country's educational system.
A study has been prepared regarding the impact of universities on society
The Association of Rating Makers, which oversees the Moscow International University Ranking (also known as "The Three University Missions"), has published a mini-study concerning a separate rating criterion: "The impact of the university on society" (The number of university graduates who have a separate page dedicated to them on Wikipedia).
The publication reveals a series of studies on the innovative criteria of the Moscow International University Rankings "The Three University Missions". The purpose of the research is to justify the necessity of using these criteria in the ranking, to clarify the essence of the results of the activities in observed universities, to determine the advantages and disadvantages of their application, to give specificity to the calculation of indicators and information sources based on them, and to show the results of the preliminary calculations.
The paper is available to view and download on Moscow International University Ranking website.
Analytical Materials for the "The Three University Missions" Pilot Ranking Released
The Association of Rating Makers, compiler of the Moscow International University Ranking "The Three University Missions", has published analytical materials for the pilot version of the rankings. Along with a ranking of the world's top 200 universities, it lists the 30 best universities within the framework of the three missions under consideration: Education, Research, and University and Society. The study's findings are based on a multilateral assessment of universities, which includes a number of innovative criteria.
American universities top the rankings: Harvard University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University and Yale University. The best British universities: Cambridge and Oxford, took the 5th and 6th places in the final table, respectively. Among representatives from continental Europe, the best results were achieved by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne with 9th place. Among participants from Asia, the University of Tokyo took 11th place. Lomonosov Moscow State University was recognised as the best university in Eastern Europe and Russia (25th place), the best in Latin America was the National Autonomous University of Mexico (105th) and the strongest among the educational institutions of Africa was the University of Cape Town (145th).
The highest level of research activity was demonstrated by universities from the United States and Western Europe: the top 30 Research sub-ranking includes 23 American universities and seven universities in Europe. Research publications by American universities participating in the rankings were cited on average 1.7 to 2 times more than the average world level. The Netherlands and Switzerland were also among the top three leaders for research paper citations.
The top 30 Education sub-ranking was dominated by universities from the United States. This is largely due to the high level of financing at American universities, where the average budget per student is 4 times higher than the level at Western European universities. At the same time, the United States failed to match European countries in attracting foreign students: the share of foreign students in the leading universities of Britain and Switzerland was on average 33 percent, which is twice as high as the indicator for American universities. As for student competitiveness, the best results are demonstrated by universities in Russia, China, the Netherlands and Eastern Europe. In international student competitions, Russian universities exceeded the number of victories of American universities by 3.4 times and British universities by 4.2 times.
The University and Society sub-ranking produced a wider geographical diversity in leaders than was seen in the education and research missions. Eleven countries were represented in the University and Society sub-ranking: Japan, USA, Mexico, Germany, UK, Canada, Taiwan, Russia, Switzerland, China and the Netherlands. The ranking showed: universities with a long history and wide range of research and educational programmes had the strongest influence on public life. As a result, 27 of the 30 best institutions in the University and Society sub-ranking were founded before the beginning of the 20th century.
Commenting on the results of Russian universities, the CEO of the Association of Rating Makers, Dmitry Grishankov, noted: "Russian universities do best in the first mission: education, but they lag behind world leaders in the field of scientific research. Russian universities are highly competitive at the world level in quality of education, which is proved by students' victories in international student competitions and graduates' achievements in various spheres of public life. Thanks to its high level of graduate training, Russia continues to be a brain donor on the global market".
The full version of the analytical materials for "The Three University Missions" pilot ranking programme is available on the rankings' site: www.mosiur.org.
First Moscow International University Ranking The Three University Missions Released
The Top 200 of the new ranking pilot version includes universities from 39 countries, 13 of them being Russian higher education institutions. Lomonosov Moscow State University is ranked 25th. Alongside Lomonosov MSU, two more Russian universities made it to top 100 world's best universities: Saint Petersburg State University and Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, ranking 72nd and 73rd respectively.
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 initiative of creating the ranking has been supported by leading universities of Russia, China, India, Iran, Japan, and Turkey. 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.
Mainland Europe is best represented in the ranking with a total of 48 universities, followed by the United States with 41 universities. The United Kingdom and China have shown a notable success too, being represented by 18 and 14 universities respectively.
"As many as 13 Russian universities in the top 200 indicate noticeable success of Russian higher education", CEO of Association of Rating Makers Dmitry Grishankov has said. "In fact, Moscow International University Ranking makes no allowances for Russian universities. The Ranking is based on the criteria international experts have approved. The criteria do not give any obvious advantages to Russia. The data were collected from independent foreign sources."
"The fact that all the indicators of the ranking are objective and it uses remotely observable data increases the ranking's credibility and promises its international recognition", states Waldemar Siwinski, Vice-President of IREG Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellency.
The ranking project was initiated by the Russian Union of Rectors in accordance with an Instruction of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The ranking operator is the Association of Rating Makers (ARM), the members of which include leading rating and research centres (Expert RA, VCIOM, Reputatsiya, etc.).
The project is supported by state funds allocated as a grant in accordance with Order of President of the Russian Federation of 5th April 2016 No. 68-rp on the basis of a competitive tender carried out by Russian Union of Rectors public organisation.
The project is supported by Oleg Deripaska's Volnoe Delo Foundation.
The project is supported by Clarivate Analytics, providing data and metrics from InCites and Global Institutional Profiles Project (GIPP).
Moscow International University Ranking "The Three University Missions": Top 25 Institutions
RANK | UNIVERSITY NAME | COUNTRY | OVERALL SCORE |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Harvard University | United States | 89.499 |
2 | Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) | United States | 69.646 |
3 | Stanford University | United States | 66.599 |
4 | Yale University | United States | 65.498 |
5 | University of Cambridge | United Kingdom | 63.966 |
6 | University of Oxford | United Kingdom | 62.417 |
7 | University of Michigan | United States | 59.398 |
8 | Johns Hopkins University | United States | 57.864 |
9 | École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) | Switzerland | 57.121 |
10 | Princeton University | United States | 56.866 |
11 | University of Tokyo | Japan | 56.113 |
12 | Columbia University | United States | 55,794 |
13 | Imperial College London | United Kingdom | 55.727 |
14 | University of Chicago | United States | 55.613 |
15 | California Institute of Technology (Caltech) | United States | 55.461 |
16 | University of Pennsylvania | United States | 55.246 |
17 | ETH Zurich | Switzerland | 54.367 |
18 | Cornell University | United States | 53.486 |
19 | Duke University | United States | 53.385 |
20 | University of California, Berkeley | United States | 53.209 |
21 | University of California, San Diego (UCSD) | United States | 52.835 |
22 | University College London | United Kingdom | 52.010 |
23 | King's College London | United Kingdom | 51.108 |
24 | University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) | United States | 51.012 |
25 | Lomonosov Moscow State University | Russia | 49.695 |
The methodology of the Moscow university ranking was discussed at the IREG Observatory seminar
The methodology of the Moscow International University Ranking was discussed at the IREG Engineering Ranking Group seminar, organized by the IREG Observatory. The National Research Nuclear University MEPhI (Moscow Engineering Physics Institute) hosted a series of discussions which took place in Moscow from 30th November to 1st December 2017.

The Director of the Association of Rating Makers, Dmitriy Grishankov, presented the core methodology of the new ranking system, "The Three University Missions", to the participants of the seminar. Mikhail Myagkov, Professor at Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology, spoke about the new criteria which allow us to assess the third mission: the impact of the university on society. Participants of the seminar showed a marked interest in the criteria which are based on the analysis of social networks and articles about universities and their graduates in the multilingual encyclopedia, Wikipedia. The participants of the seminar were presented with a study devoted to one of the innovative criteria of the ranking: "The number of university graduates who have a separate page dedicated to them on Wikipedia".
At the Moscow seminar various groups of stakeholders were represented including academia, industry, professional engineering associations and accreditation agencies as well as ranking publishers. Among the speakers were: Mikhail Strikhanov, Rector, National Research Nuclear University MEPhI, Waldemar Siwinski, Vice President, IREG Observatory; President, Perspektywy Education Foundation, At the Moscow seminar various groups of stakeholders were represented including academia, industry, professional engineering associations and accreditation agencies as well as ranking publishers. Among the speakers were: Mikhail Strikhanov, Rector, National Research Nuclear University MEPhI, Waldemar Siwinski, Vice President, IREG Observatory; President, Perspektywy Education Foundation, Dick Bochar, Secretary General, European Federation of National Engineering Associations (FEANI), Greet Langie, European Society of Engineering Education (SEFI), Sergey Shaposhnikov, member of Administrative Council, European Network for Accreditation of Engineering Education (ENAEE), Michal Kleiber, Vice-President, European Academy of Science and Arts (EASA), Dmitry Grishankov, President of rating agency RAEX, Vladimir Zernov, Rector, Russian New University, Andrey Khitrov, Chairman of the Board on Professional Qualifications in Nuclear Energy Sphere, ROSATOM and Kazimierz Bilanow, Managing Director, IREG Observatory, Mikhail Myagkov, Professor at Skoltech University.
New MosIUR Draft Methodology Released
The Association of Rating Makers published an updated draft of the Moscow International University Ranking methodology.
MosIUR International Expert Council Holds Meeting
Moscow International University Ranking "The Three University Missions" International Expert Council held its meeting on 8-9 June 2017 in the Fundamental Library of Lomonosov Moscow State University.
The meeting aimed to refine the ranking methodology ahead of the start of the international stage of ranking compilation.
The Council includes some of the most respected experts in higher education from the US, UK, Brazil, China, India, South Africa, Iran, Italy, Belgium, Turkey, and Russia.
The meeting addressed methodological approaches to the compilation of the ranking, as well as the groups of criteria, which represent universities' performance in accomplishing their missions, such as education, research activities, and university-society relationship.
During the discussion the experts of the Council supported the initiative to establish Moscow International University Ranking, endorsed the key principles of the ranking methodology and made a number of suggestions on the modification of specific criteria.
Summing up the results of the meeting, rector of Lomonosov Moscow State University and member of the Russian Academy of Sciences Viktor Sadovnichy thanked all the International Expert Council members and noted that "the International Expert Council has completely met its objectives at this stage".
Meeting attendees and contributors:
Cengiz Acartürk, Associate Professor, Informatics Institute, Middle East Technical University in Ankara (Turkey)
Ural Akbulut, former Rector of Middle East Technical University in Ankara, Head of the University Ranking by Academic Performance (Turkey)
Kazimierz Bilanow, Managing Director, IREG Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellence (Poland/Belgium)
Massimo Castagnaro, Full Professor, University of Padova (Italy)
Luiz Claudio Costa, former Vice-Minister of Education, Federal Government of Brazil, former Rector of Federal University of Viçosa, Vice Rector of Higher Education Institute of Brasilia (Brazil)
Mirko Degli Esposti, Vice Rector of Bologna University (Italy)
John T. Green, Life Fellow, Queens’ College, University of Cambridge (UK), Chair of Snowball Metrics Steering Committee (Netherlands)
Dmitry Grishankov, President of RAEX Rating Agency, CEO of Association of Rating Makers (Russia)
Barasbi Karamurzov, President of Kabardino-Balkarian State University (Russia)
Maxim Khomyakov, Director of the BRICS Studies Centre and Vice-President for International Affairs, Ural Federal University (Russia)
Nicolaas Jacobus Jooste , Senior Director, Office for International Education, Nelson Mandela Metropolitan University, former President of International Education Association of South Africa (South Africa)
Pavel Kasyanov, Bibliometrics Expert, Clarivate Analytics (Russia)
Mikhail Myagkov, Professor of Skoltech University (Russia)
Varghese Naduvilaparambil, Director of Centre for Policy Research in Higher Education (India)
Thomas David Parker, Senior Associate, Institute for Higher Education Policy, Washington D.C. (US)
Maria Francesca Renzi, Full Professor, Roma Tre University (Italy)
Claudio Roveda, Rector of Link Campus University, Rome (Italy)
Ali Akbar Sabouri, Director, Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics, University of Tehran, Managing Editor, Journal of the Iranian Chemical Society (Iran)
Viktor Sadovnichy, Rector of Lomonosov Moscow State University (Russia)
Waldemar Siwiński, President of Perspektywy Education Foundation, Vice President of IREG Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellence (Poland/Belgium)
Alex Usher, President of Higher Education Strategy Associates, Editor-in-Chief of Global Higher Education Strategy Monitor (Canada)
Jie Wang, Vice-Rector of Peking University (China)
Seyed Hassan Zahraei, Professor of the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literature, University of Tehran (Iran)
Vladimir Zernov, Rector of Russian New University (Russia)
Jianxin Zhang, Professor at Research Institute of Higher Education in Yunnan University, President of Asia Pacific Quality Network (China)
Ilya Zharov, Manager, PricewaterhouseCoopers (Russia)
Download all photos in .zip: Day 1: 1 (77 files, 68.6 Mb), 2 (61 files, 42.3 Mb), 3 (104 files, 89.8 Mb); day 2: 1 (80 files, 83.7 Mb), 2 (58 files, 71.5 Mb).
Italian Universities Join Work on Moscow International University Ranking
On 14 May 2017 Link Campus University hosted a round table on education quality evaluation and university rankings, its key topic being Moscow International University Ranking "The Three University Missions".
The event was attended by the management and professors of Link Campus University, the management of the Rectors' Conference of the Lazio Region and Roma Tre University, representatives of University of Padua, Lomonosov Moscow State University, University of Stirling (Scotland, UK), the Italian parliament and the Embassy of Russia in Italy.
The event included a presentation of Moscow International University Ranking by a representative of Association of Rating Makers (The Three University Missions ranking operator) and a detailed discussion of its development prospects. Italian university representatives displayed a keen interest in the university ranking of a new type and stressed the significance of education quality and objective evaluation of non-English speaking higher education institutions.
The participants agreed to continue their work aimed at refining the ranking methodology. President of Link Campus University Professor Vincenzo Scotti confirmed the university's intention to take part in the session of the international expert council of the ranking in June 2017.
MosIUR Methodology First Draft Released
The Association of Rating Makers published the first draft of the Moscow International University Ranking methodology.
The first draft of "The Three University Missions" methodology has been published on the official website of the ranking. The document contains major background information about the ranking, including its aim and conceptual model. It also provides a description of each of the parameters, comprising the 3 groups of criteria: Education, Science and Social Impact, each of them matching the respective university mission.
The MosIUR methodology will be further expanded and improved after a trial run on a limited data set, followed by international expert discussions.
Survey of Russian universities in the framework of the Moscow International University Ranking complete
The process of surveying Russian universities which took part in the Moscow International University Ranking "The Three University Missions" has been completed. The Organizing Committee would like to thank all the participants of the ranking for their interest and active support.
The Association of Rating Makers, which oversees the Moscow international ranking, received more than 200 questionnaires from Russian universities. The ranking included the largest classical universities in Russia and a wide range of leading universities, as well as specialized higher education institutions.
After the verification and processing of data received from Russian universities, they will be used to calibrate various variants of rating models. In particular, the experts from the Association of Rating Makers will determine the final set of criteria and their wording before the formulas used to calculate the rankings are compiled.
University surveys start in preparation for the Moscow International University Ranking
The process of collecting the questionnaires from Russian universities participating in the Moscow International University Ranking "The Three University Missions" has begun and will last until March 7, 2017.
The formation of the ranking was initiated by the Russian Union of Rectors in accordance with the request of the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin. The ranking is being conducted by the Association of Rating Makers (ARM), a non-profit organization.
The Moscow International University Ranking is the first global academic rating system that assesses all three classical key missions of universities: education, research, and impact on society. The principal difference in the new ranking system is that it is based on uniformly measured quantitative indicators and excludes the use of data based on reputation surveys, which significantly increases the level of its objectivity.
The initiative to create the "The Three University Missions" ranking was supported by the leading universities in Russia, China, India, Iran, Turkey, and Japan. Following the announcement of the launch of the ranking system, a number of public discussions were held in autumn 2016 addressing questions of methodology and ranking criteria. More than 10 conferences and seminars were held. In particular, the discussions were held within the framework of Lomonosov Moscow State University, MIEM, RANEPA, the World Bank, the IREG Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellence, as well as the rating agency RAEX (Expert RA).
The list of criteria for the Moscow International University Ranking has undergone a procedure of wide public discussion in academic circles. In particular, 69 Russian universities and 17 Councils of Rectors from various districts and regions of Russia sent written comments and proposals on ranking criteria to the ranking operator. As a result of these discussions, the criteria base was adjusted. Many of the newly developed criteria are being used for the first time in the international practice of ranking higher education institutions.
The Association of Rating Makers invites all interested educational organizations of higher education to participate in the Moscow International University Ranking. The form for participants is available on the official website of the Moscow International University Rankings http://www.mosiur.org/. Completed questionnaires must be submitted electronically before March 7, 2017 to the Association of Rating Makers at anketa@mosiur.org, as well as to the staff of the Russian Union of Rectors office@rsr-online.ru.
Russian Union of Rectors decides to organize a broad discussion on the criteria of the Moscow International University Ranking "The Three University Missions" in the regions
On the 22nd of November 2016 in the Intellectual Center - Fundamental Library of Moscow State University a meeting of the Board of the Russian union of rectors was held, where the President of the Russian union of rectors Academician V.A. Sadovnichy, the Russian President's assistant A.A. Fursenko and the Minister of education and science of the Russian Federation O.Y. Vasilyeva presented their speeches.

One of the key issues of the agenda was discussion of the preparation of the Moscow international ranking "Three university missions".
At the end of the meeting a resolution of the Council of the Russian union of rectors was adopted, prescribing to the councils of rectors of federal districts of the Russian Federation to organize a broad discussion of the criteria of the Moscow international ranking "Three university missions" and to submit the results to the office of the Russian union of rectors before the 31st of December 2016.
Moscow International University Ranking "The Three University Missions" discussed at the meeting of the Council Presidium of Rectors of Moscow and Moscow Oblast universities
On the 16th of November 2016 a meeting of the Council Presidium of rectors of Moscow and Moscow region universities was held at the Russian New University (RosNOU).
In accordance with the agenda, the Director of the center of digital economy of the Moscow State University named after Lomonosov, a member of the working group of the Russian union of rectors Professor B.S. Karamurzov made a presentation on the topic "Moscow international ranking: Three university missions" and talked about the work carried out in order to fulfill the request of the President of Russia V.V. Putin to establish a national ranking of higher educational institutions. Main approaches to ranking preparation were discussed within the framework of the report. The participants of the meeting actively participated in the discussion of the report and expressed great interest in participating in this ranking.
Preparation of the Moscow International Ranking "The Three University Missions" begins
On the 2nd of November 2016 a press conference on the launch of the Moscow international university ranking was held with participation of the Deputy Minister of education and science of the Russian Federation L.M. Ogorodova and rector of the Moscow State University V.A. Sadovnichy.

The international ranking of universities project was initiated in accordance with the request of the President of Russia V.V. Putin. This is the first project of the international ranking with a headquarter in Russia. Founders of the project are the Russian union of rectors and the Russian Academy of sciences. Operator of the rating will be the Association of rating compilers (ARC).
The main feature of the Moscow international ranking "Three university missions" according to V.A. Sadovnichy is that it evaluates all three main missions, basic ranking criteria are presented in the following three groups: "the quality of education", "science" and "university and society". Another fundamental difference of this ranking, as noted by the rector, is that it is based on consistently measured quantitative indicators which significantly increases the level of objectivity and it is planned to avoid the currently popular indicators defined on the basis of reputation surveys.
"Russia is a country with a rich past of education system and traditions. Many countries have learned from our educational system. We were an example even for the developed countries, which are now leaders in various rankings. Our education system deserves a deeper exploration, understanding it and using it for own development, - said V. Sadovnichy, opening the press conference. - We try to show the influence of universities on society, to find out whether university is the center of culture, because the university has a broad concept."
"Creating rankings is one of the most important elements of development of higher education quality in Russia, - said the Deputy Minister of education and science of the Russian Federation L.M. Ogorodova. - In our country higher education solves a wide range of problems and most importantly social issues, the results of which should be promoted in international educational space. However, this work cannot be seen in the framework of existing international global ranking. Participation of universities in the Moscow International ranking is voluntary. Reputation of the ranking is based on the authority of public organizations and its founders, in this case - the Russian union of rectors. Credibility of the ranking is connected to the unity of approaches and reliability of the information which will be used for the ranking preparation. The Russian union of rectors has performed extensive organizational work in this direction."
New ranking of universities announced: Moscow International Ranking "The Three University Missions"
New ranking of universities, Moscow International Ranking "Three missions of universities", will appear in Russia. The first ranking is planned to be prepared in 2017, said Viktor Sadovnichy, the rector of Lomonosov Moscow State University, at the meeting of the Board of Russian union of rectors.

"We are deciding on the establishment of the Moscow international ranking and inviting other countries to participate in this ranking. The first ranking will be published in 2017." - Sadovnichy said.
Universities will be evaluated through assessment of 40 indicators which reflect three basic missions of the university in modern world: "education", "research", "university and society". Moreover, in contrast to the three world university rankings recognized today as global (THE, QS, ARWU), maximum weight in the new international ranking assessment will be given to the educational mission of universities, which will be around 40%.
It is assumed that the founders will be the Russian union of rectors and the Russian Academy of sciences. According to Sadovnichy, an interest to the new international ranking having a headquarter in Moscow has been expressed by universities from China, India, Iran, Turkey and CIS countries.