Penza State University Enters BRICS Universities Ranking

On October 17, the Association of Rating Compilers (includes RAEX, Russian Public Opinion Research Center) presented the results of the first pilot version of the BRICS universities ranking. The shortlist included 825 universities. Penza State University was in the 301–350 interval group.

The published list of the ranking included 600 educational institutions from ten countries of the world: Brazil, Egypt, India, Iran, China, the United Arab Emirates, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and South Africa. As the authors of the ranking note, today the BRICS countries are the largest educational market in the world, covering countries with a population of about 3.6 billion people.

The creation of an independent ranking of BRICS universities has been discussed since 2023; the idea of the ranking was proposed by representatives of South Africa. The BRICS ranking was timed to coincide with the BRICS University Rectors Forum in Moscow on October 17–18.

The largest number of participants in the ranking — 207 — are located in China. The second country by number of participants was Russia (161 universities), third place was taken by India (93 universities), followed by Brazil (55 universities) — the BRICS country with the highest concentration of strong universities outside Eurasia. Iran is represented in the ranking by 27 universities, all other participating countries have less than 20 universities in the final list.

The best BRICS universities were: Peking University (1st place), Lomonosov Moscow State University (2nd place) and Tsinghua University (3rd place).

It should be noted that the ranking is compiled according to the model of the international ranking "Three University Missions" taking into account the national features characteristic of the BRICS members. Only objective criteria based on official statistical data, as well as data from authoritative international information providers, were used to compile the ranking. Reputation surveys are completely excluded. The sources of data for the ranking were the official websites of universities, national authorities and international independent resources.

The assessment was carried out according to three key missions of the university: education, science, interaction with society. The weights of some indicators were changed and one new indicator was added: "the number of joint scientific publications with BRICS partners". An important aspect of the model is the calibration of weight coefficients to take into account national specifics. It allowed for a more accurate assessment of BRICS universities. The new ranking has increased the weight of the following indicators: the number of student victories in international Olympiads, the share of international students. The weight of budget indicators has been reduced.