An analytical report titled "Indicators of the Effectiveness of the European University at St. Petersburg and the Place of Non-State Research Universities in the National System of Higher Education" was published on January 31. The author of the report is Dr. Mikhail Sokolov, Candidate of Science in Sociology and currently a Professor at the EUSP Department of Political Science and Sociology. The original document is available online in Russian. We are presenting a brief summary below.
Introduction
The official position of Rosobrnadzor (The Federal Service for Supervision of Education and Science) regarding the situation with the EUSP license suspension states that the current misfortunes of the University weigh on the latter's conscience and that they reflect real problems in the University's conduct. We will test the validity of this statement in the current report by analyzing data from the Monitoring of the Effectiveness of Educational Institutions to assess the quality of the work conducted at the EUSP. The monitoring provides official rankings that are guiding the Ministry of Education and Science (which is in charge of Rosobrnadzor) when deciding on budget allocations and reorganizing universities. Data regarding the EUSP are compared with those of the largest federal universities such as Lomonosov Moscow State University and St. Petersburg State University, the three leading members of various programs for the development of research universities such as Tomsk State University, the Institute of Fine Mechanics and Optics (ITMO), the National Research University Higher School of Economics and an important non-state institution - the New Economic School. The final part presents some conclusions about the reasons for the success of individual non-state universities and about the paradoxical role Rosobrnadzor plays in the life of Russian education.
Monitoring Results
The annual monitoring is carried out by the Ministry of Education and Science (MES) since 2012. It takes into account 70 indicators, seven of which are fundamental. The "research activities" index is calculated based on the number of publications, citations, lecturers with postgraduate degrees and the amount of revenues from research activities. The monitoring results are available on the MES website.
The EUSP is ranked number one based on the results from 2016 in terms of research activities. It is ahead of Moscow State Technological University "STANKIN", National Research University of Electronic Technology, National Research Nuclear University MEPhI and the St. Petersburg Institute of Fine Mechanics and Optics (ITMO). The EUSP is also ranked 1st in terms of financial and economic activity indicators and it is ranked 2nd with the average salary per lecturer, preceded only by the New Economic School.
Besides that, the University is among the leaders with the number of cited publications indexed in the Web of Science system.
In recent years the share of private educational institutions among the leaders has been growing. At the same time, until recently the pressure of regulatory authorities upon the private universities was minimal, writes the author of the report.