On January 9, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with the Chairperson of "Global Universities” Council of the Association, HSE rector Yaroslav Kuzminov, who informed the President on the implementation of "5-100" project.

The project was developed by the Ministry of Education and Science as a part of the presidential May decrees and aims at maximizing of the competitiveness of Russian universities at a global scale, as well as ensuring of the entry in 2020 of at least five Russian universities in the first top 100 of the world's leading universities according to the world universities’ ranking.

The representative of the university community noted that there are already results of this project: for a little more than two years, five Russian universities entered the top 100 of subject rankings – they are MEPhI, MIPT, Novosibirsk University, ITMO University and Higher School of Economics.

A notable expansion of our presence in the country's most prestigious rankings is just one of the results of educational support programs. Ratings are only an indicator, for which there is real work, the real process. The outcome of the program can be called a significant increase in the number of international publications in peer-reviewed journals, the inflow of foreign faculty and staff, a significant increase in R&D projects’ amount per one teacher. According to Kuzminov, universities of the "5-100" in the past year have provided 27 percent of all university research in Russia, and the key outcome of the project can be regarded as "changes in the brain circulation sign" - in the majority of educational institutions, participating in the program of state support for the largest Russian universities "5 -100 ", the number of foreigners. employed on full-time positions, is more than the number of domestic experts, who left to work in Western universities.

Another positive factor of the project is the "rapid growth of remote online education", growth of the number of students who are studying remotely, using the latest technologies.

Speaking about the project continuation, which is "formally completed - five universities are in the top 100 already", the Chairperson of the Council of the Association "Global Universities" told the president of the Russian Federation the suggestion of the representatives of universities-participants of the project "5-100" on the extension of the project until 2025 with the aim of getting in every object ranking (the number of which is close to 60-70) - from engineering areas to social and humanitarian sciences.

Rector of the HSE believes that the extension of the program will set new objectives to the Ministry of Education and Science - "where to invest, what universities need further support."