HSE Joins ARWU Top-100 in Two Subject Areas

The Higher School of Economics (HSE) has entered the Top-100 in Sociology and Mathematics of the Shanghai Ranking. It is also now the leader on this ranking among Russian universities in Economics, Political Science and Management.

For the second year running, HSE is among the Top-75 of the world's best universities in Sociology, as well as the only Russian university in this subject ranking. HSE’s stable presence in the Top-100 of global subject rankings is in line with a national project, which aims to boost the competitiveness of Russian institutions of higher learning up until 2024.

This year, HSE improved its standing in Mathematics and also joined the Top-100 in this subject area, placing in the 76-100 group. Thus, the experience of HSE shows that a young Russian university can be comprehensive and achieve success in a relatively short period of time. Our improvement in the Economics category is also noticeable, with HSE moving to the 151-200 group, while also becoming the leading Russian institution in this area, as was the case last year. In Political Science, HSE placed in the 151-200 group, ahead of St. Petersburg State University. Furthermore, HSE entered the subject ranking in Management for the first time, which is something no Russian university had previously achieved.
In total, the ARWU ranking includes 17 Russian universities in 24 subjects, including 11 participants of the Russian Academic Excellence Project 5-100. In particular, Russia has significantly improved its standing, as compared to last year, which is largely thanks to the implementation of Project 5-100. Moreover, HSE is one of the project’s leading participants, according to the international council engaged in administering Project 5-100. For instance, our university holds 27 positions in various global subject rankings, including five spots in Top-100 lists.

This year, the ranking covers 54 subjects relating to natural, engineering, social, medical and life sciences. Overall, the ranking includes 1,600 universities from 83 countries.

Maria Yudkevich, HSE Vice-Rector

Our improvement in the ranking in a number of areas is no miracle. This ranking assigns considerable weight to the volume and quality of publications. And these are the indicators that are consistently improving at HSE. In fact, all of our academic tools are aimed at ensuring the balanced growth of these parameters. Furthermore, thanks to the development of our international laboratories and other forms of partnership with leading universities around the world, the total number of co-authored articles is also increasing. This factor is also taken into account by the ranking. Paradoxically, the fact that HSE is very strong in the Social Sciences and Humanities, areas not typically deemed overly useful for university-wide rankings, has also contributed to our success. These areas are evaluated in terms of their contribution to a university’s overall development, as opposed to certain formal criteria in regards to value. So, it’s only natural that we have made great strides in these key areas.