Abstract
The Moscow International University Ranking (MosIUR) is a global university ranking launched in 2017 with the intention of evaluating universities by considering three essential dimensions (education, research, and knowledge transfer). This ranking was designed and developed by the Russian Union of Rectors following a direct request from President Vladimir Putin. The objective of this work is to perform a threefold analysis of this ranking. First, a methodological analysis is carried out, focused on describing the nature of the indicators and sources employed. Second, a geopolitical analysis aims to determine how countries are represented in this new global ranking. Third, a webometric analysis is done, focused on the online visibility of the ranking. The results reveal MosIUR to be a ranking with an outstanding number of webometric indicators and clearly oriented towards transference to society. However, some methodological concerns arise regarding a few metrics. The geopolitical position of developed countries is similar to that in other global rankings, but slight differences emerge, such as the stronger presence of Russian universities. The cybermetric analysis confirms that, despite being international, this ranking is strongly limited to Russia. It can be concluded that, except for the palpable predominance of the USA, each ranking tends to place universities from their own country in a better position. The creation of MosIUR by the Russian government can thus be perceived as a political strategy to improve the reputation of Russian universities, increase funding, and accelerate their transformation into world-class universities.
Highlights
The search term “university rankings are here to stay” yielded approximately 11,000 results in Google as of October 2020
While international rankings already existed, genuine global rankings started with the launch of the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) in 2003, popularly known as the Shanghai Ranking
The Russian Federation can be seen as an example of a world region whose cultural, political, and language characteristics as well as university system may not completely fit with the methodologies and procedures employed by the global university rankings designed by companies and organizations located in other economically strategic regions
Summary
The search term “university rankings are here to stay” yielded approximately 11,000 results in Google as of October 2020 This motto reflects the importance of these information tools in different and complementary fields, including higher education, scientometrics, economics and finance, or communication. Thereafter, the main universities in the world could be directly compared with one another, generating new benchmarking and academic reputation-building activities to improve their positions, such as the Olympic Games of higher education (Yudkevich; Altbach; Rumbley, 2015). This race to improve reputation has reshaped higher education (Hazelkorn, 2015). Ogorodova, expanded on this by announcing that the founders of the project would be the Russian Union of Rectors and the Russian Academy of Sciences, and that the ranking (initially called the Three University Missions) would be operated by the Association of Rating, Ranking, and Other Performance Evaluations Makers (ARM), a nonprofit organization whose members include leading rating and research centers such as Expert RA, Russian Public Opinion Research Center (Vciom), and Reputatsiya, among others
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary 
Published Version (
Free)
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call