The best Russian Universities - Moscow State University and St.-Petersburg State University - have fallen far behind the leading Western establishments of higher education. Lomonosov Moscow State University shares the 276-300th positions with Istanbul Technological University (Turkey), Newcastle University (Australia) and the Autonomos University of Madrid (Spain). St.-Petersburg State University is in 351-400th position along with Tartu (Estonia) and Turku (Finland) Universities and the Polytechnical University of Turin (Italy).
However, higher education experts have warned that such rankings' tables are easily misinterpreted. According to them, a low position in the list doesn’t necessarily correspond to a low quality of education in any particular University, it has more to do with the method of evaluation.
The head of the analytical service of the Russian University Chancellors' Union, Boris Derevjagin, told RIA Novosti that the creators of the Times Higher Educational rating take the Anglo-Saxon educational model as an ideal example, so it’s not surprising that Russian Universities couldn’t fit into this picture. This strict criterion, however, is neither objective nor fair.
The deplorable results of Russian Universities could also be partly explained by the lack of effort to promote themselves abroad on their part. Besides, not all Russian specialists and scientists understand the importance of an such internationally-accepted criterion of an educational establishment’s quality as the citation index of its professors and graduate students. Foreign researchers are often unaware of the work being done by their colleagues in Russia, but that doesn’t mean that this work is out of date or irrelevant. Russian science isn’t yet integrated into the ‘English-speaking community’ of international science, and this language barrier is also one of the factors contributing to the low position in the rating.
According to the vice-president of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Viktor Bolotov, the low number of Russian scientists’ publications abroad, and thus the general lack of awareness in the West of Russian scientific achievements, are the only things that stop Russian Universities from winning higher positions in such ratings as the Times'.
Olga Kashina, the Secretary of the Russian University Chancellors' Union, suggests that Russia should become an independent player in the field of international educational rankings.
