KBSU in the pilot ranking of BRICS universities

A version of the pilot ranking of BRICS universities, developed on behalf of the President of Russia, was presented on the sidelines of the Russian Rectors’ Forum, held on October 17–18.

Of the 825 universities proposed in the shortlist, 600 higher education institutions from ten Commonwealth countries were included in the final list: Brazil, Egypt, India, Iran, China, the United Arab Emirates, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and South Africa.

These are universities that occupy leading positions in global academic rankings or are leaders in national rankings.

In some cases, the selection was based on the number of scientific publications of the university for the period 2018–2021. At the same time, narrowly focused universities that do not have educational programs in at least two of the six areas of knowledge according to the OECD classification were excluded from consideration. Also excluded from the list were universities that do not have undergraduate, graduate or postgraduate programs or whose student population is less than 500 people.

The leaders of the BRICS university rankings were Peking University (1st place), Lomonosov Moscow State University (2nd place) and Tsinghua University (3rd place).

The largest number of universities in the rankings — 207 — are located in China. Russia came in second (161 universities), and India (93 universities) took third place in this parameter. Next comes Brazil (55 universities), the BRICS country with the highest concentration of strong universities outside of Eurasia. Iran is represented in the rankings by 27 universities, while all other participating states have less than 20 universities in the final list.

Kabardino-Balkarian State University named after Kh.M. Berbekov entered the interval group of 501-600 universities of the pilot BRICS ranking. Achieving such indicators became possible thanks to the developed program for the university’s development until 2030 and the targeted work of the entire team.

The idea of ​​creating a ranking of BRICS universities was proposed in 2023 by representatives of South Africa, and in the same year it was enshrined in a declaration. And in early summer 2024, at a meeting in Kazan, the education ministers of the commonwealth countries confirmed their intention to support the project.

The ranking of BRICS universities was developed on the basis of the family of ratings «Three University Missions».