Achieving goals of Project 5-100: Dynamics of UrFU Performance

markets”. This action included two tasks, among others (pp. 44-45), which were directly influenced by the requirements of QS ranking since the position in its ranking table of world universities was indicated as the first KPI for these tasks: “Positioning and promotion of the university in the market of the Russian Federation and neighboring countries”, which referred to the CIS countries, and “Increasing the publicity and academic reputation of Ural Federal University in the far-abroad countries”. The mechanisms of these tasks included publications and other forms of promotion in the media, participation in international conferences and exhibitions, management of their own events, partnership with student recruitment agencies and Russian agencies abroad and other activities. The Action Plan of Competitiveness Enhancement Program also included several tasks on developing cooperation with corporate partners.

In conclusion, this section showed that, despite UrFU not elaborating a specific strategy of internationalization, the institution was aware of the importance of the

international dimension since the very merger of its predecessors in 2009 and the integrated development of internationalization in its strategic documents from that time onwards.

However, the analysis of its positioning in the world, weaknesses in terms of international dimension, and a detailed road map for the development of various aspects of

internationalization were elaborated only after the beginning of Project 5-100. The section also illustrated that after launch of 5-100, UrFU chose positions in QS ranking tables as its main target among the three leading world university rankings, and elaborated its key

strategic document – Competitive Enhancement Program, taking into account the QS ranking methodology.

by illustrating the increase of UrFU’s positions in the three leading world university rankings that were defined as targets by Project 5-100: THE, QS and ARWU, whose criteria are detailed in section 2.1.3. Then, I provide data on the development of KPIs related to UrFU’s internationalization of research and development in the years 2013-2020.

Despite UrFU not achieving the initial goal of Project 5-100 – entrance into top-100 institutions of world university rankings, the institution has significantly increased its positions. The university moved from position #501-500 (2013) to #351 in the QS World University Ranking and entered a number of subject rankings (Quacquarelli Symonds, 2021):

QS 51-100 in Engineering – Petroleum and Engineering, Social Policy & Administration, Hospitality & Leisure Management; 101-150 in Philosophy, History; 245 in Arts &

Humanities; 396 in Natural Sciences and other subject areas. Overall, UrFU managed to enter in four QS broad subject areas and 15 other subject rankings. It also entered the U.S. News Best Global Universities rankings, THE World University Rankings by Subject and regional tables of international ranking agencies. The full list of rankings is provided in Appendix I.

From 2013 to 2020, UrFU increased its research output 5.9 times in terms of

publications in journals indexed in international databases such as Scopus / Web of Science (3,879 in 2020). In the same year, 54% of papers were published in journals of Q1 or Q2. The number of journals, issued by UrFU and indexed in international databases, grew from 2 to 10 since the beginning of Project 5-100. The employment program UrFU Postdoc was recognized as the best practice for the employment of international young researchers by the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation. The university

exceeded most KPIs on publications and citations, as well as number of international students. The dynamics of the major indicators is illustrated in Table 11 below.

Table 11

Dynamics of Performance during Project 5-100

Indicator 2013 2015 2017 2020 Multiplicity for 7 years

KPI 2020 Number of publications in journals

indexed in Web of Science per faculty member (for 5 years)

0.7 1.2 2.2 4.9 7.0 times 3.1

Number of publications in journals indexed in Scopus per faculty member (for 5 years)

1.0 1.7 3.2 5.8 5.8 times 6.0

Average number of citations in journals indexed in Web of Science per faculty member (for 5 years)

1.1 2.1 4.4 13.8 12.5 times 9.2

Average number of citations in journals indexed in Scopus per faculty member (for 5 years)

1.8 2.8 5.7 16.2 9.0 times 13.7

Percentage of international faculty

members 0.3 1.9 4.4 5.0 16.7 times 12.8

Percentage of international students 2.4 5.6 8.1 14.0 5.8 times 12.0 Note. Data collected and translated from (1) Information analysis data on the results of monitoring activities of educational organizations of higher education by Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, 2022,

(https://monitoring.miccedu.ru/?m=vpo) (2) University performance results for 2020 and objectives for 2021 [Power Point Slides], by V. Koksharov, 2020,

(https://urfu.ru/fileadmin/user_upload/common_files/academic_council/docs/20210318_Itogi _2020_goda.pdf), (2) UrFU Competitiveness Enhancement Program (2018, private

communication)

Table 11 illustrates that some indicators were growing faster than others. The average number of citations per faculty for five years increased faster than numbers of publications, and the percentage of international faculty members soared much quicker than the percentage of international students. The first point illustrates the significant growth of UrFU’s citation impact during Project 5-100, while the higher number of international faculty members could

be explained, among other things, by the fact that, at the beginning of the program, the percentage of international faculty members was much lower (0.3%) compared to that of international students (2.4%).

As it has been shown, UrFU has significantly increased the indicators of

internationalization which contribute to global university rankings and has fundamentally changed its strategy for the development of internationalization and international positioning.

The change of strategy only came into action after adopting the benchmarks of Asian and European universities, as well as through organizational change and restructuring. The chosen strategy led to the increase of indicators of internationalization and improved UrFU’s positions in the world university rankings, although it did not lead to the achievement of the initial goals of Project 5-100. The following section compares UrFU’s development during Project 5-100 with other regional universities in Russia which participated in the excellence initiative.

4.6 UrFU among Regional Russian Universities: From Low-Performing to Visibility