The ninth issue of the global Three Missions of the University Ranking has been published. In 2025, it included 2,000 universities from 112 countries of the world, including 156 from Russia. Tomsk State University ranks 7 among Russian universities and 269 in the world.
Moscow State University still demonstrated the best result among Russian universities. It holds the 17 place in the world. Then there is St. Petersburg State University (rose from 49 to 47 place) and the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (moved from 54 to 59 place). The new issue of Three Missions of the University Ranking includes universities from all federal districts. The total number of Russian universities has grown to 156, which is four universities more than last year.
The head of the Association of Ranking Compilers, Advisor to the President of the Russian Union of Rectors, Deputy Chairman of the Public Council under the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation Dmitry Grishankov emphasized the improvement of positions of universities in the BRICS countries:
– The distance between the Global North and the BRICS states is becoming less: the dynamics of many indicators are in favor of developing countries. The number of BRICS universities in the ranking is growing, including due to new partners of the association. If in 2021 the share of BRICS universities was 24%, then in 2025 it exceeded 32%.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has been holding the leading positions for the second year. In 2024 it removed Harvard University from the first place. Then there are British universities – Oxford and Cambridge. The top 20 has almost not changed over the past three years.
The second ranking of BRICS universities, part of the Three Missions of the University Ranking, will be published by the end of 2025. The pilot ranking was released in 2024.
Three Missions of the University Ranking:
The Moscow International University Ranking is a fundamentally new academic ranking that for the first time evaluates all three key missions of the university: education, science and interaction with society. To compile the rating, only objective criteria are used, based on official data (including public reports of universities), as well as data from reputable international information providers. Reputational surveys are completely excluded.
The ranking was initiated by the Russian Union of Rectors in accordance with the instructions of the Russian President Vladimir Putin. The ranking operator is the Association of Rating, Ranking and Other Performance Assessment.
The pilot version of the Three Missions of the University Ranking was published in December 2017. The ranking was successfully passed by an independent audit of PricewaterhouseCoopers Audit, a member of the PwC global network.
Information from the RAEX ranking group