Interfax, Ekho Moskvy rank best universities for 2014/2015 academic year

International information group Interfax and radio station Ekho Moskvy have released their sixth annual national university rankings for the 2014/2015 academic year.

The key aims of this project are to develop mechanisms and procedures for an independent evaluation of Russian universities and their education programs, to boost the competitiveness of Russia‘s education system, scientific research and technological entrepreneurship.

Lomonosov Moscow State University maintained its position at the top of the rankings in the 2014/2015 academic year. National Research Nuclear University MEPhI was next and National Research University Moscow National Institute of Physics and Technology (State University) third.

The top 10 Russian universities included Bauman Moscow State Technical University (No. 4), St. Petersburg State University and People‘s Friendship University of Russia (shared No. 5 and No. 6), Novosibirsk National Research State University (No. 7), Tomsk National Research State University (No. 8), Tomsk National Research Polytechnic University (No. 9), Higher School of Economics National Research University (No. 10).

Six key parameters are used in the judging: educational activity; science and research activity; socialization, which reflects a university‘s social activity; internationalization or international activity; university brand and innovation and entrepreneurship.

The first two parameters carry a weight of 0.2 points each and the other parameters - 0.15. The rankings were compiled after processing information on forms filled out by university representatives, public data on university websites, public information resources from the Russian Education and Science Ministry and information from the SPARK (www.spark-interfax.ru) and SCAN (www.scan-interfax.ru) databases.

The rankings included more than 200 universities, including two national universities, nine federal universities, 29 national research universities, 62 classic universities, 42 technical and technological universities (including three rail universities and a mining university), 12 economics universities (including one non-government academic university), 21 agrarian universities, 12 architecture and construction universities, eight pedagogical and linguistic universities, ten medical universities and one non-government diversified university.

The full table of national university ratings for 2014/2015 can be seen on the project‘s official website www.univer-rating.ru.