University in ratings

Vasyl Stus’ Donetsk National University plays an important role in the national and international educational system and ranks high in various ratings.

QS World University Rankings

The World University Rankings by Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), published for the 10th year in a row, is recognized worldwide as a tool for assessing the quality of education.

The rankings use six basic criteria to evaluate universities:

  1. Academic reputation (40%)
  2. Employer reputation (10%)
  3. Student-to-faculty ratio (20%)
  4. Citations per faculty (20%)
  5. International faculty ratio (5%)
  6. International student ratio (5%)

Only those universities that offer bachelor’s, master’s and postgraduate (or doctoral) studies can enter the rankings.

In 2016, six Ukrainian universities entered the QS World University Rankings. Vasyl Stus’ Donetsk National University was ranked in 701+ category. It has slightly lost its positions since 2011, when it was in 501+ category.

Emerging Europe and Central Asia QS Ranking

 Starting from 2014 QS University Rankings: Emerging Europe & Central Asia defines the best 200 universities in the region.

In an effort to investigate the effectiveness of higher education institutions in Eastern Europe and the Caucasus, the ranking uses a methodology that coincides with the general methodology of QS World University Rankings® and is similar to those used for other regional QS ratings. The rankings use nine basic criteria to evaluate universities:

  1. Academic reputation (30%)
  2. Employer reputation (20%)
  3. Faculty Student Ratio (15%)
  4. Papers per Faculty from Scopus (10%)
  5. Web Impact from Webometrics (10%)
  6. Citations per Paper from Scopus (5%)
  7. Proportion of Staff with PhD (5%)
  8. Proportion of International Students (2.5%)
  9. Proportion of International Faculty (2.5%)

Vasyl Stus’ Donetsk National University in 2016 was on the 101st place, ahead of the Lviv Polytechnic University.

Consolidated Rankings of Universities

 “Osvita.ua”, an information and educational platform (http://osvita.ua/vnz/rating/51741/), compiled consolidated rankings of higher educational institutions of Ukraine in 2016. The most influential national and international ratings of Ukrainian universities “Top 200 Ukraine”, “Scopus” and “Webometrics” with their unique evaluation criteria were used as initial data for compiling the consolidated rankings.

In the rankings, Vasyl Stus’ Donetsk National University is sharing 17-18 positions with Uzhgorod National University. In 2015 the University ranked 15th.

In the rankings of the best universities of central Ukraine our University lost one position and was superseded by Oles Honchar Dnipro National University. According to the rankings, the University was recognized as the best one in Vinnitsa and Vinnytsia oblast in 2016. However, according to “Top-200” our University ranks lower then two Vinnytsia universities – Vinnitsa National Technical University and Pirogov Vinnytsia National Medical University. And according to Webometrics, the university is five positions behind Vinnytsia National Technical University. The main indicator by which our University significantly outstrips all Vinnytsia universities is its rating in Scopus database.

Consolidated Rankings of HEIs

Top-200 Ukraine

Starting from 2006, the Top-200 Ukraine has been the only academic rating in Ukraine accredited by IREG (International Ranking Expert Group). Its distinguishing feature is that it compares universities of different types using a universal system of criteria. In 2016, the tenth issue of the rating was released. Its methodology agrees with the international principles of university ranking and stipulates a comparative analysis of achievements of different types of universities on the basis of some universal criteria.

The activity of a HEI is assessed using an aggregate indicator (integral index), which includes direct measurement (80%), expert assessment of the quality of graduates’ training by employers and the academic community (15%), as well as some international scientometric and webometric indicators (5%). The integral index (C) consists of three components: the quality of scientific and pedagogical potential (Isp), the quality of education (Iqe), international recognition (Iir). In total, 21 direct measurement indicators with a total weight of 80% and expert assessment indicators (20%) were used to formulate these indices in 2015.

In 2015/2016, a criterion “Innovative activity of universities” was additionally introduced. It was quantitatively measured by the volume of investments made by private, high-tech businesses into university startups. Start-ups were represented not only by the latest technical developments, but also by projects in various fields of human activity (biological, medical, agrarian, humanitarian and others), which were based on the latest innovations and were in demand in the consumer market.

In 2016, the University took the 9th place among classical universities and 32nd place among 200 universities of Ukraine.

Webometrics

The Ranking Web or Webometrics evaluates more than 24 thousand universities worldwide. Since 2004 it has been compiled by the Cybermetrics Lab (Spanish National Research Council, CSIC), one of the largest scientific institutions in Europe. Citation per faculty indicators taken from the Internet and Scopus database have the highest weight in the rating (80%). The rating also takes into account how universities implement open access to the results of their research, training materials, regulatory framework etc. In 2015, the Cybermetrics Laboratory changed their methodology and significantly increased the impact of those university publications, which are among the 10% most cited ones in the relevant fields of science according to Scimago (based on Scopus). This year the methodology of the rating has also undergone some changes. Webometrics continues to struggle with dishonest practices of increasing the rating through artificial external links. To achieve this, additional filters were added to the algorithm for calculating a Web Impact Factor (WIF). Also, the authors of the rating corrected the disadvantage associated with the discrimination of universities from “urban” domains, which was present in the previous version.

The rating is released twice a year – in January and in July.

As of February 2, 2015, Vasyl Stus’ Donetsk National University ranked 32nd among 299 Ukrainian universities in the rating and 4445th among the universities of the world.

As of July 2015, our University ranked 21st among 295 Ukrainian universities in the rating and 5136th among the universities of the world.

As of January 2016, the university ranked 26th among 292 Ukrainian universities and 4338th among the world’s universities.

As of July 2016, the university ranked 23rd among 344 Ukrainian universities and 4262nd among the world’s universities.

Scopus

In April 2016, URAN publishing service was requested by Osvita.ua to conduct a scientometric monitoring of scientific publishers in Ukraine based on SciVerse Scopus indicators in order to rank the Ukrainian universities.

As of April 4, 2016, Vasyl Stus’ Donetsk National University takes 17th place (10th among classical universities) among 128 higher education institutions of Ukraine in terms of indexes of publication activity in editions that are indexed in Scopus. Over the past year, our University lost three positions in the general rating and one position among the classical universities.

Hirsch-index (or h-index) is a key indicator in this rating. For our University, this index is 26 and it rose by one compared to last year’s rating.

The University managed to partially restore its lost positions in the ranking among the universities of Ukraine and the world. This was the result of a partial change in the evaluation methodology, creation of electronic pages of the University’s departments and structural divisions, and active coverage of events taking place at the university, scientists’, graduates’ and students’ achievements in scientific, educational and community-based activities.