On June 6, the British Agency Quacquarelli Symonds has published a ranking of the best universities in the world – QS World University Rankings, the results of which were presented at the press conference: "15 years of the QS World University Rankings: movement of Russian universities".

The National Research Nuclear University MEPhI, continuing to demonstrate a strong positive dynamics, climbed 44 positions to rank 329th place in the ranking (4th place among the participants of the Project 5-100).

The Regional Director for Eastern Europe and Central Asia of QS Ltd Zoya Zaitseva noted that "the results of our universities are extremely positive, Russia has entered the top 5 in the world in the dynamics of improving its position in QS World University Rankings". In total, 27 Russian universities are in the ranking – this is three more educational institutions than in last year's edition, 17 of them are participants in the Project to improve the competitiveness of leading Russian universities, and all 17 have shown growth. In general, this has been the best result of Russian universities in the QS rating since 2004. Zoya Zaytseva also drew attention to the trend: "From year to year, an increasing number of universities are moving from regional to global rankings, which leads to increased competition between them. That’s why it’s nice and honorable to move even two positions up."

According to Alexander Sobolev, Director of the Department of state policy in the sphere of higher education of the Ministry of education and science of the Russian Federation, the positive result is the result of the systematic work of both the government and universities over the past 10-15 years. He added that the country has world-class universities, which have the opportunity to compete with global brands. Alexander Sobolev named four areas that lead to such impressive results: research, international cooperation, openness of the University to new educational technologies and involvement in global projects.

In turn, the head of the project office of the Project 5-100 Nadezhda Polikhina stressed that ratings are not a project’s goal in itself, but only a tool for assessing the efficiency of the University, the degree of its effectiveness and transformation into a world-class University. "There is a huge work of universities behind the positive dynamics in the rankings," said the expert.

Dmitry Guzhelya, the adviser to the head of the Federal Agency for the Commonwealth of Independent States, compatriots living abroad and international humanitarian cooperation (Rossotrudnichestvo), also noted the positive results of the work of Russian universities. According to him, 65 per cent of all foreign students enrolled in the 15,000 quotas allocated by the Government of the Russian Federation is accounted for by the universities included in the top ranking. "We see high recognition of Russian universities," he said, adding that this year Russia has received more than 140,000 applications compared to 80,000 in 2017, which indicates the extreme demand for domestic education in the near and far abroad.

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This year the QS World University Rankings celebrates its 15th anniversary. In its preparation, the creators analyzed the data of more than 4,000 universities from 85 countries: they studied more than 14 million scientific publications and took into account more than 97 million citations, interviewed more than 43 thousand employers and 83 thousand representatives of the academic community. The final list consists of 1000 universities.

The international QS rating is based on six criteria: credibility in the field of research, the ratio of the teaching staff to the number of students, the reputation of the University among employers, the citation index of scientific publications, the share of foreign students and the share of foreign teachers.