A Prognostic Analysis of the Publication Activity of Scientists from Ukrainian Universities in the Context of Their Entry in the QS World University Rankings

Abstract

QS World University Rankings is one of the most prestigious rankings showing the effectiveness of the institutions of higher education in comparison to others. The scientometric citation rate that determines one-fifth of the final score is quite important in this ranking and is considered an indicator of the quality of the teaching staff. With this in mind, the main problem of the article is to study the tendencies of citations for the research and teaching staff from Ukrainian universities, to ensure entry for more Ukrainian universities into this ranking. The problem is a topical one, as there seems to be no detailed scientific analysis devoted to indexing and citing the works of the Ukrainian scientists, published in scientometric databases recognized by the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine. To solve the problem, mathematical and statistical methods were used in analyzing the publication activity of researchers from Ukrainian universities. For construction of prognostic models of the tendencies in the publication activity of the research and teaching staff from higher educational institutions of Ukraine, the method of exponential smoothing according to the Holt model was used, which showed the best consistency indicators for the empirical data and the obtained theoretical models. To analyze the publication activity of Ukrainian universities from the perspective of the QS rating methodology, the universities were selected using the authors’ methods. Results of the study allowed the authors to determine the peculiarities of the dynamics of publication activity of research and teaching staff from Ukrainian universities over the last 9 years. The main peculiarity was the accelerating growth of citations of Ukrainian research and teaching staff from the moment of reorientation to the European experience in research and education, with the resulting change in the terms of performing education activities, effected by Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine. In addition, forecasting of citation indexes of scientific papers by researchers from higher educational institutions of Ukraine in 2021–2023, which are taken into account in the 5th part of the calculation of QS rating by its method (normalized number of citations received by university articles for 5 years according to the Scopus database per 1 teacher), shows that this indicator is a very serious problem for Ukrainian universities in the context of competition with foreign universities. For its solution, measures should be developed both at the government level and at the level of higher education institutions of Ukraine to effectively support the publication activity of the university research.