On 15th October “Social navigator” of the news agency “Russia Today” and the British company QS Quacquarelli Symonds presented a version in Russian of QS EECA University Rankings 2020 which covers higher education institutions of the developing countries of Europe and Central Asia.

It is noted that this Eurasian ranking has become the most extensive in the whole history: this year QS has assessed 568 universities, previously ranged 347 ones and officially published the results on 350 best universities, 105 of them being Russian.

Penza State University entered the ranking again occupying the place in the 231-240 group and sharing it with Ammosov North-Eastern Federal University, Northern (Arctic) Federal University named after M.V. Lomonosov, and Ulyanovsk State University. PSU is the only Penza representative in this ranking. The analysts from Quacquarelli Symonds ranking agency noted the high value of the PSU indicator “Share of employees with academic degrees”.

The leaders of the ranking are three Russian universities: Moscow State University, St. Petersburg State University and Novosibirsk State University. Penza State University is on the 61th place in the Russian segment (54-62 places).

Mikhail Kotyukov, Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, commented the ranking results: “We have big ambitions concerning the export of educational services, which can be achieved by combining up-to-date educational technologies, innovative approaches, best traditions of the soviet school and international best practices. Not only do we have the aim to double the number of international students in five years, but also the key component is a qualitative one – to attract talented young people to our country, to employ them in Russia and to increase profit be means of exporting educational services. We consider the export of education to be an integral part of economic activity. With high competition at the global educational market, the search for unique educational niches and development of competitive products is an uneasy task. It is the challenge for the country as a whole and for each university in particular. Thanks to the resources from such national projects as “Education” and “Science” we have an opportunity to differentiate our work with different groups of international applicants, which is extremely important. Besides, we provide ongoing professional development for teachers, as well as development of infrastructure in universities and cities. All these are investments into the “Russian education” brand which in the nearest future is to retake the lead in the most prestigious world rankings”.

All in all, the ranking assesses universities by 10 criteria: academic reputation and reputation among employers, ratio of teachers and students, number of publications per employee, international research links, university impact in the Internet, share of PhD employees, citation, share of international employers and students. Each criterion makes a certain contribution into the total assessment of the university.