The Three University Missions Ranking
The Three University Missions Moscow International University Ranking is a global ranking of academic universities developed by the Russian Association of Rating Makers, with the participation of the international association IREG Observatory on Academic Ranking and Excellence. The ranking evaluates the quality of education, scientific work, and also, for the first time in the compilation of global academic rankings, it consistently evaluates the universities' contribution to society. The ranking has been published annually since 2017.
History
Plans were first announced in 2016 for the development of a new international ranking that would evaluate not only the quality of education and research, but also the level of international cooperation, and the contribution to sustainable development and distance education. The operator of the ranking, the non-profit Association of Rating Makers, was established by the International Group RAEX and leading Russian rating agencies and ranking compilers.The pilot version of the ranking was published in December 2017. It included 200 universities from 39 countries.
The second issue of the ranking, published in November 2018, included 333 universities from 53 countries. The short list of the third issue, which the compilers plan to complete in summer 2019, includes more than 1,500 universities.
Methodology
Development of methodology
The methodology of the ranking system was developedin collaboration with more than 100 organizations – universities, councils of rectors, rating agencies, and expert associations, notably the IREG Observatory on Academic Rankings and Excellence and the Russian Union of Rectors. The Expert Council of the ranking comprises experts in the field of higher education from the Belgium,Brazil, China, India, Iran, Italy, Poland, South Africa, Turkey, USA, UK, and Russia.Criteria
According to the current version of the methodology, the ranking uses 17 criteria divided into three groups: “Education,” “Research”, and “University and Society.” The total weight of criteria per group is: Education – 45%, Science – 25%, University and Society – 30%.;Education group criteria
Number of winners from the university in international student olympiads in individual and team competitions
Percentage of international students
Ratio of the university budget to the number of students
Ratio of students to the number of researchers and teaching staff
;Science group criteria
Number of awards on the IREG Observatory List won by researchers and teaching staff and by university graduates
Field-Weighted Citation Impact, according to Scopus
Normalised Citation Impact, according to Web of Science
Field-Weighted Citation Impact, according to Scopus
Normalised Citation Impact, according to Web of Science
Ratio of income from research to the number of researchers and teaching staff
Field-Weighted Views Impact of scientific publications
;University and Society group criteria
Number of courses offered by the universities on the largest global platforms of massive open online courses
Share of the university's academic papers in the total publications of the country's universities
Total number of university web pages indexed by leading search engines
Number of views of the university's Wikipedia page
Number of subscribers to the university's Twitter account
Number of university graduates with an individual Wikipedia page
International audit
In May 2018, the ranking received a report on its audit by PwC. The “Three University Missions” ranking thus became the second global academic ranking, after Times Higher Education, that passed this procedure.Rankings
The 2017 pilot ranking comprised 200 universities from 39 countries, including 13 Russian universities. The most widely represented nations in the ranking were universities in the United States, the UK, and China, with 41, 18, and 14 universities in the top 200, respectively.The 2018 ranking includes 333 universities from 53 countries, including 17 Russian universities. In the top 333 of the second issue of the ranking, 61 universities from the USA are represented, followed by the UK and Germany.
The compilers of the 2019 ranking extended the short list of universities under review to 1,640 and announced plans to finish work on the next issue of the ranking by summer 2019.
Reaction
The ranking attracted the interest of a number of representatives of the rating community and researchers, who particularly noted the innovativeness of the ranking in terms of its assessment of the interaction between universities and society.According to the president of the Perspektywy education foundation, Waldemar Siwinski, the ranking "goes beyond traditional ranking criteria, adding some new, more socially oriented elements".
In an interview with the Brazilian publication Folha de S. Paulo, the president of the international association IREG Observatory on Academic Rankings and Excellence, Luiz Claudio Costa, noted that “the new Moscow International University Ranking represents the second generation of academic rankings and <...> poses correct and important questions by its search for indicators to evaluate the quality of teaching and the interaction of the university with society”.
The president of the Council for Higher Education Accreditation, Judith Eaton, called the release of the ranking timely, in view of the growing recognition that the social role of a university is one of its key functions. She views the ranking as an attempt to move away from the elitist approach of evaluating universities, instead paying special attention to the social responsibility of higher education.
An expert on academic rankings from the University of Groningen, Jules van Rooij, criticized the ranking, noting that, despite a number of "good ideas," " of the ranking measure only what they want to measure" and "quality can't be assessed with simple linear lists".
Jack Grove, columnist for World University Rankings, was also skeptical about the ranking, noting that the exceptional achievements of Russian universities in the ranking had Russian roots.
The ranking was discussed in a number of academic studies along with the leading global university rankings – Times Higher Education, QS, ARWU, etc. An article by Ivančević & Luković points out that the Moscow International University Ranking is the only global academic ranking considered in their study that covers all “performance dimensions.” Zadorozhnyuk et al. noted the innovative use of the “University and Society” group criteria in the ranking. In addition to “The Three University Missions” ranking, the assessment of the university's contribution to society is also used by the Washington Monthly College Rankings and THE Impact Rankings.