HSE University Enters THE Top 100 in Economics and Appears in Law Ranking for the First Time

HSE took 94th place in THE ranking in Business & Economics, outperforming all the other Russian universities in this subject. In addition, the university entered the ranking in Law for the first time (151+ cohort), becoming the only Russian university represented there. HSE University also ranked in the 151-175 group in Social Sciences, holding first place ranking among Russian universities.

Britain’s Times Higher Education (THE) has published rankings in four subjects: Business & Economics, Education, Law, and Social Sciences. They include a total of eight Russian universities, six of which are participants in the Russian Academic Excellence Project 5-100. HSE University holds leading positions in three of the published subjects.

HSE University moved to the Top 100 in Business & Economics due to its growing reputation in teaching and research according to a survey of international experts, as well as growth in the number of research publications and citations. Other statistical indicators have also contributed to this improvement, such as the proportion of international students and staff, and the number of doctorates awarded to academic staff.

HSE First Vice Rector Leonid Gokhberg discusses ISSEK’s contribution to publication activity rankings in economics and the social sciences.

Leonid Gokhberg

First Vice Rector of HSE, Director of the Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge (ISSEK)

In recent years, the team at the Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge has managed to significantly increase not only the number but also the level of scientific publications. We challenged ourselves to focus primarily on leading specialized international journals when presenting research results. This has ultimately contributed to our growing reputation, development of international collaboration, and recruitment of students, including internationally, to study in the Governance of Science, Technology and Innovation master’s programme. It’s nice to see that ISSEK holds a leading position among university departments in the average Source Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP) level of publications indexed in the Scopus database. An equally important and immediate effect has been the strengthening of our colleagues’ research competencies, especially those of young scholars. Approximately 80% of the Institute’s young researchers have already published articles in first or second quartile journals. It would be impossible to achieve such results without the programmes that HSE University has implemented to support its cutting-edge research centres and international laboratories.

Sergey Pekarski, Dean of the HSE Faculty of Economic Sciences, said: ‘Establishing a reputation is not a fast process; it requires consistent effort. My fellow economists have achieved success in different areas: growing numbers of our graduates who enter the best PhD programmes in the U.S. and Europe, expanding research collaborations with international researchers, and, of course, improvement not only in numbers, but also in the quality of economic publications. I want to mention in particular that among internationally recruited researchers at HSE University, the biggest share is occupied by economists. We are also actively expanding and updating our programmes for international students. Defences for Candidate of Sciences degrees under HSE’s new standards have not slowed down, but, on the contrary, have stimulated the training of young academic personnel. Next, we are working on developing incentives for those who recently received the Doctor of Sciences degree.’Evgeny Salygin, Dean of the HSE Faculty of Law, shared the following thoughts on HSE’s entry into the ranking: ‘The Faculty of Law is consistently moving up in international rankings. Our teachers, as well as researchers invited to the International Laboratory for Information Technology and Intellectual Property Law, are actively publishing in international indexed journals. The faculty has recently started to take a more active role in organizing international law conferences in Russia and abroad. We have expanded and strengthened our ties with international researchers, which has had a positive effect on our reputation.’

As Andrei Melville, Dean of the HSE Faculty of Social Sciences, commented, ‘We are maintaining our leading positions in Russia thanks to the growing quality and number of publications by our staff, and we are also attracting new international lecturers – both acknowledged academics and promising young scholars. By the way, the fact that the Faculty of Social Sciences carries out interdisciplinary research contributes to the ranking in other subjects, such as publications in Economics & Business. THE is not the only ranking in which HSE University and its Faculty of Social Sciences is recognized on a global and national level. The university is also among the Top 100 QS 2019 in Politics & International Studies and Sociology, Social Sciences & Management subject rankings.’

Publication of the THE ranking completes the series of this year’s subject rankings in social sciences and economics. It should be noted that HSE University is Russia’s top university both in Sociology and Economics under three key international rankings (ARWU, THE and QS).
The methodology used by subject rankings is based on the same 13 indicators as the institutional ranking, which are also united into five categories, although the weight of indicators varies depending on the subject area.