University Institutional Repositories: an analytical study of the ten best university Repositories

The research aimed to study and analyze the best global University institutional repositories, which were selected by the search engines and the Spanish website Metrix. A descriptive approach has been used to carry out the research (survey) and a deliberate sample has been taken (ten university repositories) from a community of 500 repositories mentioned in the directory of free access repositories (open Dora), in terms of content, types of digital content management systems, number of recordings, language used and methods of storage and retrieval. The study found that 70% of university institutional repositories used the open source Dspace system. Press articles have been ranked first with a percentage of 100%, while theses came in second rank with regard to the substantive content of the repositories. Moreover, it is found that the position of the repository does not depend on the number of existing recordings as much as it depends on the quality, usage and the links of these recordings.

Comprehensive quantitative analysis of TOP-100s of ARWU, QS and THE World University Rankings for 2014–2018

The article examines the global university reputation race, launched in 2003. Between 2003 and 2010, there appeared a cluster of publications on the qualitative comparative analysis of their methodologies, and since 2010, a cluster of publications on the quantitative comparative analysis of university rankings has started to form. The review made it possible to identify a number of unsolved problems concerning the stability of university rankings, aggregation of the number of universities and their Overall Scores (Total Scores) by country in various rankings. Our study aimed at solving these tasks was carried out for TOP-100s of ARWU, QS, and THE rankings. When calculating the fluctuation range of the university rankings, the top twenty of the most stable and most unstable university rankings were identified in the rankings under study. The best values of the aggregated indicators by the number of universities and the Overall Scores were identified for the USA and the UK.

From the corporate culture of national university to the global university: the case of the RUDN University

The relevance of the research is associated with the increasing competition in the global educational market, where Russian universities enter and pretend to the status of a global university due to the Project 5-100. Today an academic institution needs to form a brand in the actual international infosphere. This process based on many factors, one of which is the corporate culture (CC) of the university, and the study is concerned with the exploration of its features. The main characteristics of the concept of global university and the description of the features of the CC of the university are given. The results of the study of CC of the RUDN University, that were received in 2019 through a survey of teachers, staff and students of the university, are presented. In conclusion, the recommendations on how to transform the CC of a university so that it allows to form its brand in the global educational space are formulated. These recommendations will be useful to any university that works in Russia or enters the global education market.

Institutional prestige, academic supervision and research productivity of international PhD students: Evidence from Chinese returnees

Since the emergence of global university rankings in the 2000s, East Asian universities have been recruiting academics with doctoral degrees from Western countries to strengthen their competitiveness in the global university league tables. Governments offer scholarships to support students in their overseas doctoral studies and encourage graduates to return. Although much attention is given to researchers with overseas degrees, little is known about their experiences and pre-employment academic productivity. Drawing on a nationwide survey and bibliometric data, this study examines whether and how the institutional prestige of a host university and academic supervision contribute to the academic productivity of government-funded Chinese PhD returnees during their doctoral studies. Results show that supervisors’ research support and collaboration positively affect pre-employment academic productivity. However, a university's prestige does not exert such an influence. Moreover, co-authorship with a supervisor is a crucial mechanism in the influence of supervisors’ research support on PhD students’ productivity.

Transforming Power of Scientific Knowledge

Knowledge, and especially scientific knowledge, is crucial in terms of transforming societies, and making social structures manageable and sustainable. This can be seen in the fact that the universities which are at the top of the global university rankings are mostly located in countries that are the center of attraction. The aim of this study is to examine the positive effects of academic productivity, which is of great importance in optimizing social conditions, on human development on a global scale with a statistically provable technique. In order to understand this relationship more clearly, our study has compared countries according to their academic productivity using the Multidimensional Scaling Analysis method and established a relationship between this and human development. As a result of the analysis carried out within the scope of the study, which used data from 178 countries from the time period of 1996-2019, it was concluded that the relationship between academic productivity and human development was only at a medium level. This suggests that, in addition to the need for scientific knowledge to be used for the improvement of social conditions, scientific knowledge is limited to certain organizations, which leads to the elitism of scientific knowledge.

International Symposium and International School for Young Scientists on “Physics, Engineering and Technologies for Biomedicine”

International Symposium and International School for Young Scientists on “Physics, Engineering and Technologies for Biomedicine” (PhysBioSymp) is an annually held event in National Research Nuclear University MEPhI (https://eng.mephi.ru/) (Moscow, Russia) since 2016. This symposium is conceived as the main conference of the Institute of Engineering Physics for Biomedicine (PhysBio, https://physbio.mephi.ru/), which is one of new strategic academic units founded in 2016 in the course of transformation of MEPhI from the technical to a global university in order to extend its portfolio toward life sciences, chemical and biomedical engineering. Following the chosen strategy, PhysBio aims at the advancement of its international reputation in biomedical sciences and technologies, as well as the integration of latest research achievements into the educational process in order to contribute to the solution of global problems, such as early diagnostics and efficient therapy of socially significant diseases, including cancer. Conceived as an essentially interdisciplinary institution, PhysBio is unique in combining powerful background of MEPhI in physics, mathematics, engineering, material sciences, nanotechnologies and expertise in new areas in chemistry and biology in order to develop breakthrough technologies for biomedical applications. List of Committees are available in this pdf.

Mis-Measuring Our Universities: Why Global University Rankings Don’t Add Up

Draws parallels between the problematic use of GDP to evaluate economic success with the use of global university rankings to evaluate university success. Inspired by Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics, this perspective argues that the pursuit of growth as measured by such indicators creates universities that ‘grow’ up the rankings rather than those which ‘thrive’ or ‘mature.’ Such growth creates academic wealth divides within and between countries, despite the direction of growth as inspired by the rankings not truly reflecting universities’ critical purpose or contribution. Highlights the incompatibility between universities’ alignment with socially responsible practices and continued engagement with socially irresponsible ranking practices. Proposes four possible ways of engendering change in the university rankings space. Concludes by calling on leaders of ‘world-leading’ universities to join together to ‘lead the world’ in challenging global university rankings, and to set their own standards for thriving and maturing universities.