HSE University: Making Way on Top of QS Rankings in Education

The latest update of QS World University Rankings that was released earlier this week has placed HSE in an upper ‘100–150’ band in ‘Education’ – the highest position in this subject area among all Russian HE organizations to date.

The recent QS publication heralds HSE’s further huge strides in the standings as the University has climbed up some 100 places from its previous ranking within a lower ‘150–300’ tier back in 2018. This surge is yet another testimony to the growing recognition that the global community has accorded to the University’s performance and scholarly outputs.

One of HSE’s principal divisions since 2012, the Institute of Education has contributed its major stake to making this progress happen. A fast-growing hub for multifaceted R&D and networking in education, IOE has played a crucial part in underpinning HSE’s streamlined development across dimensions.        

‘Such an impressive climb is due to the fact that the QS rankings in Education factor in not only academic reputation but also scholarly deliverables within the last five years. An academic reputation takes decades to build up, so it’s more difficult for younger universities to compete for high positions in the rankings. Six years back from now, when the Institute of Education was founded at HSE, there was still little research in that area by Russian scholars, and this was clear to those outside of Russia. The Institute has emphasized expanding its advanced-research portfolio on an ongoing basis while sticking to best-practice international approaches and guidelines. Thanks to a major ramp-up in the volumes of research featured in leading international publications, HSE is now on par with QS top 50 universities.’

Isak Froumin, Head of the HSE Institute of Education

Cutting-edge Expertise to Leave a Legacy

Since its very inception, IOE has capitalized on a diverse expertise base brought by an audacious team of accomplished academics and junior staff with the knowledge and experience spanning various areas of education and beyond.

IOE’s Graduate School of Education, which welcomed its first class in the fall of 2013, has been able to push the frontiers of educational studies in Russia. Our PhD candidates are afforded unique opportunities to conduct high-caliber independent research within the most relevant interdisciplinary frameworks and by harnessing state-of-the-art qualitative and quantitative methods.    

High-impact R&D to Benefit Multiple Realms  

Anchored in a comprehensive approach that adopts the most important conceptual perspectives across disciplines and draws on extensive empirical datasets, IOE’s centers and expert groups pursue an agenda that aspires to facilitate transformative impacts on sector policy and practice so that various stakeholders and social realms would benefit from sustainable positive change.   

At IOE, we have pioneered a range of high-profile studies that seek to prompt novel and deeper insights into how education interacts with various other dimensions of social and economic life. For example, ‘Trajectories in Education and Careers,’ a project that has been underway since 2011, marks the first world-class national panel ever conducted in the post-Soviet space. Also, IOE has actively trailblazed in such domains as educational data science and social networking analysis, informal education, learning experiences and engagement, core competencies and literacies, etc.

Partnerships and Networking to Make a Difference at Scale

At IOE, we are committed to advancing sustainable partnerships, global networking and other initiatives for community integration as vital to effectively delivering our Strategy & Mission. Across the agenda, we strive to go the extra mile ensuring our scholarly outputs help make a difference at scale.

Our fast-growing Partnership Network enables us to stay up on the newest thriving conceptual frameworks and applied perspectives in education-centric R&D from across the globe. This helps IOE build a sound capacity to successfully engage in a range of high-stake global research endeavors, including projects carried out in association with QS top 10 institutions.

IOE’s latest contributions to large-scale multilateral R&D include:

• 25 Years of Transformations of Higher Education Systems in Post-Soviet Countries: Reform and Continuity (volume by research teams at 16 universities in former Soviet states and Europe)
• Key Competencies and New Literacy (led by an IOE-supervised consortium of six top-rank global universities, with backing from Sberbank’s Investment in Future Foundation)
• SUPER project (study of STEM undergraduate performance in Russia, China, India and the U.S., conducted in association with Stanford University, Tsinghua University and Educational Testing Service)
• Evaluating Student Progress in Primary School (iPIPS methodology to measure students’ entry ability and educational attainment as they progress through the primary stage; implemented together with the Centre for Evaluation & Monitoring at Durham University)
• Educational Inequality (run in cooperation with five leading international universities).

Today, IOE’s faculty counts more than a dozen visiting professors of international renown. We are also into ongoing cooperation with a premier cohort of affiliated experts from top-tier organizations such as Stanford University, Oxford University, UC Berkeley, Peking University, the University of Helsinki, Boston College, Politecnico di Milano, etc., who alternate time spent on the IOE premises in Moscow and contributing to the academic agenda off the campus.  

While on their PhD track at IOE, students can benefit from first-rate opportunities to spend several months on a study & research sojourn with an IOE partner institution as best matches the area of one’s doctoral pursuit and plans for building further academic collaborations.