default EIGHT-YEAR PLAN: RUSSIAN LEADING UNIVERSITIES TO ENTER THE TOP-100 Популярные

Victoria Plutalova

East China Normal University

(Shanghai, PRC)

Abstract. A high-class university has long stopped being just a center of knowledge transfer; it is now a place to generate world-changing innovations, to do cutting-edge research and to cultivate creative and independent thought. Such a university attracts talented and motivated students as well as outstanding teachers and researchers, and gives them a rewarding opportunity to constructively apply their skills and knowledge and create new ones. World university rankings reflect university performance across its core missions using a number of performance indicators; while its position on the ranking table is determined by its standing in the academic community, the results of the international comparisons significantly influence the university reputation among students, employers and government. Many countries are now trying to adopt accelerated measures to promote their universities upwards on the tables. Russian educational policy-makers have developed “The 5-100 project” with a series of measures on increasing academic competitiveness in several relevant performance indicators; which will be successful if at least five Russian universities hit the top-100 of the world university rankings by 2020.

Keywords: university rankings, higher education, Russian tertiary education, the 5-100 project, educational policy.