On 15 October, QS Quacquarelli Symonds published QS Emerging Europe and Central Asia University Rankings 2020. Voronezh State University took 145th place among the universities of Eastern Europe and Central Asia and 30th among Russian universities. Experts praised the efficient work of the university’s internet resources, its innovative activities, and academic mobility.
10 criteria were used to analyse institutions of higher education: academic reputation and employer reputation, international mobility, research activities, and citation index. The closest competitors of VSU are Russian Presidential Academy of Public Administration and Moscow Aviation Institute and other Russian universities.
Mikhail Kostukov, the Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, commented the results of the ranking:
“We have ambitions related to the development of export of educational services and we can only fulfil them if we combine modern educational technologies, the innovative approach, the best traditions of the Soviet school, and the international experience. Apart from a double increase in the number of international students in the upcoming 5 years, quality is another key aspect, i.e. attraction of talented youth to the country, their employment in Russia, and the growth in exporting educational services. We consider the exporting of education to be a high value area of economic activity. It is not easy to find educational niches and to develop competitive products on the highly competitive global education market. And it is a great challenge for every university. Thanks to the resources of the national projects “Education” and “Science” we have an opportunity to use a differentiated approach when working with different groups of international students, which is really important. What is more, we continuously support the advanced training of lecturers and the development of infrastructure in universities and cities. These are all our investments into the brand of Russian education which should regain its leading positions in the most prestigious rankings in the nearest future.
