ITMO University consistently ranks within the top 15 best Russian universities: it placed 15th in 2018, 14th in 2019, and 13th – in this year’s ranking.
The ranking is compiled based on both statistical indicators and data from surveys of representatives of academic and scientific communities, students, graduates and employers. This year, 61,500 respondents participated in the survey. The statistical component includes university survey data, scientometric indicators, and information from open sources.
The main aim of the ranking is to evaluate universities’ ability to ensure the provision of high-quality knowledge, competencies and skills to their students, and to their graduates – a guarantee of successful employment and all the conditions favoring further career building.
“The number of universities submitting their questionnaires to participate in the RAEX ranking grows each year: while there were 125 universities participating in 2014, this year this number amounts to 164. This means that the competition among universities increases, and the ranking itself is becoming more and more in demand among both prospective students and employers. In this regard we are undoubtedly glad to see our positions in the ranking rising, all the more so given the highly competitive environment,” comments Ilya Kuftiryov, head of ITMO University’s Rankings Research Center.
All universities are evaluated based on three indicators: conditions for the acquisition of high-quality education, level of demand for their graduates among employers, and level of research activity. Holding the most weight – 50% of the total score – among them is the assessment of a university’s education quality: it consists of such criteria as the level of teaching (the number of regular teaching staff per 100 students and the ratio of regular lecturers who are members of state academies of sciences at the national level), international integration (the ratio of full-time international students, the ratio of full-time students of double-degree programs, the ratio of students having studied abroad for no less than one semester), availability of resources (the amount of financial resources per one student, the assessment by the representatives of academic community of the level of available resources within the educational process), demand among prospective students (the average Unified State Exam score of students admitted on the basis of general admissions for full-time study, the ratio of students admitted on the basis of participation in or winning an academic competition).
ITMO is among the leaders across all of these indicators: last year, it placed 10th, while this year it managed to rise to seventh place.
Another important criterion – the level of a university’s research activity – is based on the evaluation of its innovative activity (budget brought in for R&D activities, amount of funding from grants of Russian Foundation for Basic Research, Russian Foundation for Humanities and Russian Science Foundation, the index of students’ involvement in R&D, and the number of students’ wins in international academic competitions), scientific accomplishments (the amount of publications in scientific journals indexed by international databases for the last five years, articles’ citation rate, the assessment by the representatives of the academic, scientific and innovative communities of the popularity of research publications by a university’s staff, the success rate of the commercialization of a university’s developments), and innovative infrastructure (the number of research laboratories within a university, the number of design and engineering units, the number of innovative units). Here, ITMO placed eighth in 2019 and kept this place in this year’s ranking.
The third, and, according to the respondents, most problematic criterion is the level of demand for a university’s graduates among employers (amounting to 30% of the total score). This criterion includes, inter alia, the analysis of such aspects as cooperation with employers and the quality of graduates’ careers – the latter evaluates the number of graduates holding senior positions at Russia’s largest companies, graduates’ average salary, and employers’ opinion on the quality of graduates’ applied knowledge and skills. Last year, ITMO ranked 33rd on this criterion, this year, the university rose to 25th place.
More detailed information on the ranking can be found on its official website (in Russian).
The RAEX ranking of Russian universities has successfully passed the international audit by the IREG Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellence. This entitles the RAEX agency to use the IREG Approved sign, which confirms that the ranking’s methodology, the procedure of its compilation, and presentation of its results meet high quality standards.
