Рilot ranking of BRICS universities by the The Three University Missions Family of Rankings (2025)
Methodology for the Russian Version of the Pilot BRICS Ranking, 2025.
The methodology for the Russian iteration of the pilot ranking of BRICS universities is based on the approaches employed to compile the global list The Three University Missions — the first academic ranking that garnered significant international discourse from its inception. The ranking model has been amended to accommodate the national specific features of educational institutions in the BRICS countries.
The ranking answers the question which universities harmoniously fulfill the three key missions: educational, scientific, and social. The ranking is based on verified objective indicators and does not utilize subjective assessments from experts.
Shortlist of participants
The ranking shortlist included over 1,000 universities representing the consortium countries – Brazil, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Iran, China, the United Arab Emirates, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Ethiopia and South Africa, as well as countries that had received the status of BRICS partner states before June 1, 2025 – Belarus, Bolivia, Kazakhstan, Cuba, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda and Uzbekistan.
The list includes universities that hold leading positions in global academic rankings and/or leading positions in national rankings. In some cases, the selection was based on the number of scientific publications of the higher educational institution in 2019–2022. The evaluation did not include narrow-profile higher education institutions (HEIs), i.e. those that do not offer educational programs in at least two of the six fields of knowledge as classified by the OECD, as well as HEIs that lack bachelors, masters, or Ph.D. programs (or their equivalents). Subsequently, universities with fewer than 500 students were excluded from the shortlist.
Information Sources
Only objective criteria approved by international experts were used to create the ranking; reputation surveys were completely excluded. Information was taken from open data sources – official websites of universities and national authorities, as well as independent international sources: the largest aggregator of online course platforms Class Central; the mass education platforms Open Education (Russia) and icourse163.org (China); the publicly accessible multilingual universal encyclopedia Wikipedia; search engines Google, Yandex, Baidu; social media Facebook*, X (the former Twitter**), VK, Sina Weibo, YouTube, Telegram; Similarweb, a leading global web analytics company; websites of international student Olympiads; bibliometric data providers; websites of scientific awards from the IREG List of International Academic Awards.
Rating model evolution
One of the tools used to incorporate the national specific features of the BRICS countries was special calibration of the ranking model weighting factors. To ensure more accurate assessment of the BRICS HEIs, the ranking uses parameters with weights different from weights of the global Three University Missions ranking criteria. Specifically, the weights were increased for the indicators “The number of students’ wins in international students’ Olympiads” (from 7% to 9 %) and “The share of international students in the total number of students” (from 8% to 10 %). At the same time, the weights of some other indicators were decreased for “The HEI budget-to-student” (from 15% to 13 %) and for “The faculty-to-student ratio” (from 15% to 13 %).
As part of the scientific mission assessment, an additional criterion “Joint publications with BRICS partners” (weight 2%) was used in the ranking. The number of scientific publications prepared jointly with foreign partners from BRICS countries was counted. The criterion measures the intensity of the universitys scientific collaboration with BRICS partner organizations. Once this indicator was added to the ranking, the weight of the “Average normalized citation impact (global level)" criterion was decreased from 10% to 8%.
Ranking Calculation
The total weights of the group indicators are: 45% for the “Education” group, 25% for the “Science” group, and 30% for the “University and Society” group.
For each indicator, the HEI’s score characterizing its position relative to competitors was calculated. The calculation was carried out in two ways:
1) For normalized indicators (global and national citations, share of publications and transparency), the score of the participating HEIs was calculated according to:
Where:
xi is the score of the i-th indicator
ai is the value of the i-th indicator
amax is maximum value of the i-th indicator;
ami is minimum value of the i-th indicator;
2) In cases where linear calculation was not applicable, data normalization methods have been used.
Subsequently, scores of universities for each ranking indicator were multiplied by corresponding weight coefficients. Finally, weighted university scores in all indicators were summed up:
Where:
f is is the ranking score
ai is the value of the i-th indicator
Nx is number of rating indicators;
vi is weight of the i-th indicator.
The BRICS countries pilot university rating criteria, 2025
1 . Criteria Group: Education Criteria №1
Name of criterion
Amount of student wins in international student contests
Parameters
Student competitiveness
Weight
9
Meaning
Unlike common scientometric indicators, that measure academic personnel achievements, this innovative criterion makes it possible to measure student competitiveness. The criterion demonstrates quality of knowledge, skills, and competence, university students obtain during their studies, as well as their ability to use these resources to solve complex tasks. The number of winners of international student competitions and other prestigious international contests cannot be large; however, the number of Prize winners of prestigious contests is a focused way of demonstrating effectiveness of learning and students’ aptitudes for breakthrough scientific research.
Source of data
Websites of international contests
Details
The number of wins in individual and team competitions across 13 international student Olympiads*** in 2020–2024 was determined similarly to the Olympic Games "medal table" (Olympiad winners and prize-winners were counted). A weight was assigned to each Olympiad based on its country coverage (the ACM ICPC with participating students from over 100 countries has the maximum weight of 1.00; the NSUCRYPTO and the Belgrade Business International Case Competition which involve students from 9 countries have the minimum weight of 0.09). The resulting weighted values were summed up.
1 . Criteria Group: Education Criteria №2
Name of criterion
Share of international students
Parameters
Attractiveness for international students
Weight
10
Meaning
This indicator shows the proportion of international students to the total number of students. It is widely used by existing academic rankings.
Source of data
Websites of universities and regulatory bodies
Details
Foreign students enrolled full-time or part-time in bachelors, specialist, masters, and highly qualified personnel training programs, who spent more than 3 months at the university in the estimated year (normalized to the total number of students enrolled full-time in bachelors, specialist, masters, and highly qualified personnel training programs (ISCED-2011 Levels 6-8)). Student numbers were calculated on a full-time equivalent basis.
1 . Criteria Group: Education Criteria №3
Name of criterion
University budget to student ratio
Parameters
Financial resources
Weight
13
Meaning
This criterion evaluates a university’s financial wellbeing. The higher the indicator, the wider the range of opportunities to implement the three main missions of a university: education, scientific research, and contribution to society.
Source of data
Websites of universities and regulatory bodies
Details
Since the cost of goods, works and services can vary greatly from country to country, the budget was calculated using purchasing power parity as determined by the World Bank (if not available, using parity according to the OECD data). Students enrolled full-time or part-time in bachelors, specialist, masters , and highly qualified personnel training programs (ISCED-2011 Levels 6-8) were taken into account.Student numbers were calculated on a full-time equivalent basis.
1 . Criteria Group: Education Criteria №4
Name of criterion
Student to academic staff ratio
Parameters
Human resources
Weight
13
Meaning
The indicator measures university staffing. The more faculty and research staff per student, the more attention university staff may give to each student, and, therefore, the better the learning conditions for the latter.
Source of data
Websites of universities and regulatory bodies
Details
The faculty headcount (professors, teaching staff, and research personnel) was calculated on a full-time equivalent (FTE) basis. Students enrolled full-time or part-time in bachelors, specialist, masters, and higher qualification training programs (ISCED-2011 Levels 6-8) were included, with student numbers calculated on a full-time equivalent (FTE) basis.
2 . Criteria Group: Science Criteria №5
Name of criterion
IREG List awards won by academic staff and alumni
Parameters
Outstanding scientific achievements
Weight
7
Meaning
The proposed metric is an elaboration of the approach proposed by the Shanghai ranking. Fundamentally, the idea of counting the number of winners of prestigious prizes to assess a university’s scientific potential is correct. However, considering only Nobel and Fields Prizes severely limits the scope for evaluating an HEI. Therefore, we used the IREG List of International Academic Awards, which includes the world’s 99 most prestigious scientific awards (with a possibility of expanding the list in the future).
Source of data
Websites of international awards
Details
The weighted number of awards from the IREG List of International Academic Awards received by university staff and alumni in 2005 – 2024 was calculated. Only staff members who worked in the university when the award was presented were included. Individuals who had successfully completed their studies in bachelors, masters, and doctoral programs at the HEI (and in equivalent programs) were counted as graduates.
2 . Criteria Group: Science Criteria №6
Name of criterion
Average normalized citation impact (global level)
Parameters
Quality of scientific publications (international level)
Weight
8
Meaning
Normalized citation impact quantitatively shows how much better or worse than the global average a particular publication is cited compared to publications of the same type, area of knowledge, and year of publication. The indicator demonstrates global relevance of a university’s research activities within academia, reflecting its acuteness and quality. Normalized citation indicators are widely used by academic rankings.
Source of data
Bibliometric data providers
Details
Publications from 2020–2023 were considered. Normalized citation impact was calculated separately for six broad fields of knowledge according to the OECD classification (natural sciences, engineering and technology, medical sciences, agricultural sciences, social sciences, humanities). The resulting indicators for all fields of knowledge were summed up.
2 . Criteria Group: Science Criteria №7
Name of criterion
Average normalized citation impact (national level)
Parameters
Quality of scientific publications (national level)
Weight
3
Meaning
This indicator demonstrates global relevance of a university’s research activities within academia of its home country. Introducing this criterion contributes to a better consideration of achievements of national research schools and a more accurate research output evaluation in the humanities.
Source of data
Bibliometric data providers
Details
Publications from 2020–2023 were considered. The ration of the HEIs average normalized citation impact to the corresponding national indicator was calculated. The final score was calculated as the ratio of the HEIs result to the best result among universities in the HEIs country.
2 . Criteria Group: Science Criteria №8
Name of criterion
Research income per academic staff member
Parameters
Involvement of staff in research and development
Weight
5
Meaning
The indicator shows the amount of R&D funds raised per academic staff member. The higher the amount per staff member, the more in-demand university research is. For universities that collect data on expenditure rather than income, the indicator is calculated as expenses (budget) per academic staff member.
Source of data
Websites of universities and regulatory bodies
Details
Funds attracted by the university for scientific research and development were considered. This amount does not include other components such as income from educational activities, investments, commercialization, etc. If national or other specifics do not allow to isolate research revenue, the research budget is used as the indicator of funds spent on research. The calculation was performed using purchasing power parity as determined by the World Bank (if not available, using parity according to the OECD data). The faculty headcount (professors, teaching staff, and research personnel) is calculated on a full-time equivalent (FTE) basis.
2 . Criteria Group: Science Criteria №9
Name of criterion
Joint publications with the BRICS partners
Parameters
Scientific cooperation with the BRICS countries
Weight
2
Meaning
The new criterion, used to compile the academic rating for the first time, reflects level of university cooperation with the BRICS partners. The indicator helps to strengthen the BRICS partner relations.
Source of data
Calculations were based on bibliometric data
Details
The number of joint publications of the HEI with BRICS partners over four calendar years (2020–2023) was taken into account.
3 . Criteria Group: University & Society Criteria №10
Name of criterion
Amount of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)
Parameters
Contribution to affordable online education
Weight
6
Meaning
This innovative indicator, applied for the first time in the practice of global academic rankings, measures a universitys activity in developing MOOCs. There is a clear public demand for open online courses, and the fact that this education activity is rapidly developing is beyond doubt. The more courses are published on online platforms, the broader the knowledge a university delivers through the internet, and the greater its contribution to the accessibility of education worldwide.
Source of data
“Class Central” aggregator, Open Education, icourse163.org
Details
The number of massive open online courses hosted on platforms included in the Class Central aggregator, as well as on the Open Education and icourse163.org platforms, was determined at the time of data collection (July 2025). Each platform was assigned a weight based on its total number of online course enrollees (the Coursera, edX, FutureLearn, Open Education, and icourse163.org platforms have the maximum weight of 1.00). The resulting weighted values were summed up.
3 . Criteria Group: University & Society Criteria №11
Name of criterion
University’s share in total national publications
Parameters
Contribution to a country’s scientific research
Weight
4
Meaning
This innovative ranking indicator measures national significance of universities for scientific development in their respective countries. The higher a university’s share in country’s total university publications, the bigger its contribution to research in the country, and consequently, the higher such a university’s importance and value for society.
Source of data
Bibliometric data providers
Details
The ratio of the number of publications of the HEI over four calendar years (2020–2023) to the number of publications of the country where the university is located. The final score was calculated as the ratio of the HEIs result to the best result among universities in the HEIs country.
3 . Criteria Group: University & Society Criteria №12
Name of criterion
Total pages of a university’s website indexed by leading search engines
Parameters
Web presence
Weight
3
Meaning
The indicator evaluates a series of the most important aspects of a university’s interaction with society: openness and transparency, information availability, commitment to information exchange.
Source of data
Google, Baidu, Yandex
Details
The number of web pages indexed by search engines on the official domains of HEIs was determined using standard syntactic domain search operators of the Google, Baidu, and Yandex search engines. Following measurements during April–June 2025, the minimum index value was determined for each of the instruments. The highest result of the measurements by three search engines was included in the HEIs final score.
3 . Criteria Group: University & Society Criteria №13
Name of criterion
Views of the university’s page on Wikipedia
Parameters
Popularity on the web
Weight
1
Meaning
Along with the official university website, Wikipedia is an important source of information. Many views on the university’s page on Wikipedia testify to a university’s impact on society
Source of data
Wikipedia
Details
Total views of the HEIs Wikipedia page in English and, if applicable, the official national language(s) of its country in 2024
3 . Criteria Group: University & Society Criteria №14
Name of criterion
Followers on university social media
Parameters
Communication on social media
Weight
3
Meaning
Social media is one of the most practical communication tools for the university and those interested in its activity. A significant number of universities creates awareness of their activities through social media. The popularity of different social networks varies in different countries and from university to university. Therefore, the number of subscribers on 6social medias is collected for each university.
Source of data
Facebook*, X (previously Twitter**), VK, Sina Weibo, YouTube, Telegram
Details
The number of subscribers to the HEIs page or channel on six social media platforms – Facebook*, VK, Х (former Twitter**), VK, Sina Weibo, YouTube, Telegram was analyzed. Pages in English and national languages (if applicable) were reviewed. The total number of subscribers on the two social media platforms where the university has the largest audience was included in the HEIs final score.
3 . Criteria Group: University & Society Criteria №15
Name of criterion
Number of alumni with an individual article about them on Wikipedia
Parameters
Alumni impact on society
Weight
7
Meaning
Quality education is made up of largely incommensurable phenomena, including the extent to which a university has an impact on society. One of the most effective ways to measure this is to count the number of alumni who are successful in various areas (politics, science, art, business, charity) and possess an individual article about them on Wikipedia. This indicator quantifies the university’s impact on society
Source of data
Wikipedia
Details
The total number of university graduates with a personal Wikipedia page that meets the thresholds: the graduate’s year of birth — no earlier than 1954, the number of page views — at least 1000 in 2024. Thus, pages of alumni that are not used by users are not included in the calculations.
3 . Criteria Group: University & Society Criteria №16
Name of criterion
University website reach
Parameters
Societal relevance
Weight
4
Meaning
This indicator reflects relevance of a university’s official website for users from all over the world. The higher the visit ratio, the more popular a university is. If the website is visited by many Internet users, then the university is considered relevant and valuable for society.
Source of data
Similarweb
Details
The number of unique visitors to the university website per month is measured. Data from Similarweb (similarweb.com), one of the global leaders in web analytics, is used; measurements were made in July 2025.
3 . Criteria Group: University & Society Criteria №17
Name of criterion
Transparency
Parameters
Informational openness and quality of information policies
Weight
2
Meaning
This indicator is a complex evaluation of university policies related to informational openness to society, their consistency, and extent to which a university encourages horizontal communication.
Source of data
Websites of universities
Details
The indicator evaluates whether the following resources, materials, and publications are available on the universitys official website: the most recent general annual statement, the most recent financial statement, an alumni portal, an open staff directory or search system, and the university mission statement.
* - banned in the Russian Federation; belongs to the Meta Corporation, which is recognized as extremist in the Russian Federation.
** — blocked in the Russian Federation.
*** — list of student contests:
- The International Collegiate Programming Contest
- Belgrade Business International Case Competition
- International Mathematics Competition for University Students
- John Molson Undergraduate Case Competition
- Network of International Business Schools Worldwide Case & Business Plan Competitions
- NSUCRYPTO
- SCORE Software Engineering Contest
- The Annual Willem C. Vis International Commercial Arbitration Moot
- The Mathematical Contest in Modeling
- The Philip C. Jessup International Law Moot Court Competition
- The SIAM Award in the Mathematical Contest in Modeling
- The University Physics Competition
- The World Universities Debating Championships