Published on: 2026-05-14
Source: Novosibirsk State University –
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On May 13, the agency RAEX published for the fifth timesubject ratings of the family “Three Missions University”. The lists included 167 universities from 45 regions of Russia. This year, ratings were prepared in 35 subject areas — these are mathematics, a broad range of natural science and engineering specialties, social and humanitarian directions, etc. The ratings were formed solely based on objective data; survey results from experts were not used. NPU this year is presented in 14 ratings — four more than in 2025.
The highest positions of NGU were occupied in the field of “biology”: the university entered the top 3 best universities in Russia, conceding only to Moscow State University and Saint Petersburg State University. NGU took 4th place in “chemistry”, 5th in “physics”, and 6th in “mathematics”. Among other fields where NGU entered the top 10 are “mechanical engineering and robotics” (9th place) and “history and archeology” (10th place).
Over the year, the university significantly improved its positions in “Information Technologies” (rising from 17th to 13th place) and “Linguistics and Foreign Languages” (rising from 14th to 11th place). It also rose by two spots in “Mechanical Engineering and Robotics” (from 11th to 9th place) and “Philology and Journalism” (from 19th to 17th place). Among the new directions where the university is positioned is “Management” (17th place). After a two-year break, NSU returned to the subject rankings in “Economics” (took 15th place), “Psychology” (19th place), and “Law” (19th place).The university’s positions did not change compared to last year in the subject areas: “biology”, “physics”, “mathematics”, “history and archeology”, as well as “sociology” (11th place).
This year, adjustments were made to the subject rating methodology, which positively affected the university rankings. For example, the criterion “The share of those enrolled in full-time master’s programs holding a bachelor’s/specialist’s degree from another university” was replaced by the indicator “The share of students who have completed at least 4 courses of higher education and continued their studies.”
—This new criterion reflects the ability of universities to provide training not only at the basic, but also at the advanced level, involving in-depth study of specific professional areas and active student participation in scientific activities. At NGU, half of the bachelor’s graduates enroll in master’s programs. Many of them subsequently choose to pursue postgraduate studies: currently, more than 550 postgraduates are studying at NGU.Among the factors that contribute to attracting young researchers are the opportunity to work on promising directions, participation in competitions for obtaining grants with leading research teams, including those from institutes of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, participation in scientific schools, conferences, and seminars organized at the NGU base, — commented the rector of NSU, corresponding member of the RASDmitry Pyshny.
Two indicators of scientific activity, previously based on the RSCI data (number of publications and citations), were replaced by “White List” indicators — in the 2026 ranking, the number of articles published in “White List” (EGPNI) journals over three years, as well as the number of citations of these articles, are taken into account. For the calculations, the OpenAlex bibliographic database was used for the first time. The position of NGU in the ranking was influenced by the high share of the university’s scientific publications in the higher category of the White List, which are well cited. Thus, according to the results of 2025, the share of NGU’s publications in the first two levels of the White List journals amounted to 81%.
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Subject ratings are based on the evaluation of the university’s three missions – educational, scientific, and social.
When evaluating the primary — educational mission of universities — the quality of preparation of enrolled applicants, the university’s personnel support, the competitiveness of the master’s program, the volume of funding, the results of students’ participation in the Russian student Olympiad, and the number of massive online courses are assessed.
The indicators of the “Science” group include bibliometric indicators (publications and citations), according to the Web of Science and RAS databases, data from studies adjusted for scale, the scale of training higher qualification personnel (postgraduate studies), the number of defended dissertations, as well as the share of extrabudgetary sources in the total volume of expenditures on scientific research and development.
When evaluating the third, public mission of universities, both subjective and institutional indicators related to the university as a whole were taken into account. For example, the university’s contribution to the training of personnel for the region, the proportion of students in the field on a national scale, the proportion of target students, the proportion of first-year students from other regions.
The methodology of subject ratings is developed considering the characteristic features inherent to different spheres. Therefore, different sets of indicators and different weights are used in subject ratings. Thus, for the natural science and engineering fields, the weight of the “Science” group is 35%, while for the social and humanitarian fields it is 25%. The weight of the indicators in the “Education” group for the natural science and engineering fields is 40%, whereas for the social and humanitarian fields it is 50%. All indicators of the third group, “Society”, in both cases make up 25%.
Please note; this information is raw content obtained directly from the information source. It represents an exact report on what the source claims and does not necessarily reflect the position of MIL-OSI or its clients.