1. 2020 Vision
A focus on research and
internationalisation for
Russia’s Project 5-100

2. 2 Sponsored supplement from Times Higher Education March 2015
President Vladimir Putin’s hugely
ambitious aim to thrust five Russian
universities into the world’s top 100 by
2020 is intended to disprove his country’s
saying “You can’t jump higher than your
head”. Three years in, the changes facili-
tated by the Russian Academic Excellence
Project 5-100, which aims to do just as it
says and promote academic rigour, are
becoming evident.
A strong representation was seen in the
Times Higher Education BRICS &
Emerging Economies Rankings 2015:
seven Russian Federation institutions
made it into the top 100, up from just
two the previous year. Russia’s “dramatic
improvement”, according to THE rank-
ings editor Phil Baty, includes the new
entry of three of the 15 institutions taking
part in Project 5-100 – National Research
Nuclear University MEPhI, Moscow
Institute of Physics and Technology, and
Novosibirsk State University.
There has been further good news this
month as two Russian candidates scored
well in the newly published 2015 Times
Higher Education World Reputation
Rankings. Baty notes: “There were
encouraging results for Russia: Lomono-
sov Moscow State moved up to 25th,
from the 51-60 band last year, and Saint
Petersburg State University entered the
top 100 in the 71-80 band.”
To join Lomonosov and Saint Peters-
burg in the World Reputation Rankings,
the Project 5-100 establishments must
continue to improve their internationali-
sation scores. To this end, collaborating
with other institutions around the
world to boost the reputation of their
research is vital.
There are already examples of such
partnerships in these pages and, while
nobody is jumping above their own
head, a realistic pace of change can be
clearly observed.
Positive steps
Supplement editors Fiona Salvage and
Siân Phillips
Sub-editors Sarah Weller and Sarah Bancroft
Design Heather Bowen
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Reigniting theun
Momentum is building
in Project 5-100 which
aims to propel the top
tier of Russia’s research
institutions into the
global elite by 2020.
Victoria Bentata reports
provide a clear case study of what can be
achieved with a comprehensive, coherent
policy to develop world-class universities.”
John Morgan, Unesco professor of the
political economy of education at the
University of Nottingham, and author of
many papers on education systems in social-
ist and post-socialist states, comments that
“the improvement in Russia’s BRICS rank-
ings is encouraging, but a country of Russia’s
standing really should be aiming to be on a
par with the US and Western Europe as far
as its higher education institutions are
concerned”. Of Project 5-100 he says: “It is
good to see a systematic approach to
reform…after the years of neglect following
the end of the Soviet Union.”
However, he views as “exceptionally opti-
mistic” the target of five universities in the
world’s top 100 by 2020. “It is like turning
round a big ship. It takes time to begin the
process and follow through. You can’t just
spin the wheel.” He notes also that, because
of the general economic problems in Russia,
resources for this project are likely to be
T
he Russian Federation’s ambitious
Project 5-100 has supplied much-needed
encouragement to its higher education
sector. Last year, a university vice-rector, who
wished to remain anonymous, likened the
country’s universities to collapsed stars –
their light coming from a source that had
long since disappeared. However, if that
bleak assessment had any truth, Project 5-100
seems to be proving that new stars are
emerging: the number of Russian institutions
in the Times Higher Education BRICS &
Emerging Economies Rankings 2015 has
jumped from two to seven in a year.
In the 2014 BRICS rankings, only
Lomonosov Moscow State University (10th)
and Saint Petersburg State University made
the grade (67th). A year later, they had
climbed to fifth and equal 64th, respectively,
and were joined by the National Research
Nuclear University MEPhI (13th), Novosi-
birsk State University (34th), Moscow
Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT)
(69th), Ufa State Aviation Technical
University (70th) and Bauman Moscow
State Technical University (equal 90th).
Of the newcomers, MEPhI, MIPT and
Novosibirsk State are all members of
Project 5-100. Not a bad start.
Project 5-100 has certainly been high
profile and it is possible that, along with the
funding, the attention has focused the great
minds in Russia’s universities on achieving
its aims of increasing academic excellence
and catapulting at least five institutions into
the world’s top 100 universities by 2020.
The selection of Moscow as the venue for
the Times Higher Education BRICS & Emerg-
ing Economies University Summit in Decem-
ber 2014 was a fillip, attended by more than
150 university leaders from around the
globe, as well as representatives of some of
the most prestigious higher education estab-
lishments in the emerging economies. Phil
Baty, THE’s rankings editor, comments: “The
BRICS & Emerging Economies Rankings
Feeling upbeat the boost to the Russian academy is sta

3. March 2015 Sponsored supplement from Times Higher Education 3
ity. And, of course, our research is oriented
towards obtaining new knowledge because
we now have information from the cutting
edge of science.” Novosibirsk has also signif-
icantly increased its funding for staff and
students to participate in international meet-
ings, a great boost for the internationalisa-
tion objective of Project 5-100.
The THE World Reputation Rankings
2015 attempt to measure something less
tangible than the more number-crunching
BRICS & Emerging Economies Rankings, as
they are a subjective measure of how senior
niversity stars
scholars around the world rate institutions.
As Baty explains: “While hard metrics may
suggest that Lomonosov Moscow State
University has lost ground and fallen behind,
its history, past glories and dominance of the
region may help it achieve strong reputation
scores. It is likely to be riding on its heritage.”
On Russian universities in general, he says:
“There’s an issue about image versus reality.
But having a powerful global reputation is
very important and something to build on.”
Russia’s new stars are beginning to attract
wider attention, but they will need to burn
much more intensely if five of the country’s
universities are to cross the line in 2020.
MIPT, one of these, has indeed been a hive
of activity since the initiative was announced.
In the past year, 30 new labs have been
founded, 200 lab employees, many foreign,
have joined the staff and 10 international
conferences have been held. Artem Voronov,
its provost, is upbeat: “The 5-100 Project has
enabled a significant speeding up…there’s a
synergetic effect and mindset shift among
scholars and professors,” he says. l
limited. However, in the longer term, he
views the introduction of the EGE state
exam for university entrance in Russia as
encouraging. “This should have important
reform consequences later on because it
means certain core standards are being met
and a uniform and transparent approach
adopted throughout the country,” he says.
R
epresenting one of the institutions that
has newly achieved a BRICS ranking,
Sergey Netesov, vice-rector (research)
of Novosibirsk State University, is upbeat
about the changes that Project 5-100 has
facilitated and inspired so far. “We have
already made a lot of improvements,” he
says, citing the organisation of 50 new
research laboratories, as well as upgrading
the university’s physical environment,
computer facilities, textbooks and database
access for students and teachers. He regards
the latter as key to improving research. “If
students and teachers actively use informa-
tional databases for their research and
teaching, their publications improve in qual-
President Vladimir Putin
is ambitious for Russia’s
universities. In May
2012, he called for at
least five of them to
reach the top 100 in
world university rankings
by 2020.
In May 2013, a
competition was held
to select 15 top institu-
tions to receive extra
funding to help them
to achieve this. Look-
ing to develop their
international research
potential, the immediate
objectives included
ensuring that at least
10 per cent of academ-
ics and researchers and
15 per cent of students
came from abroad.
Funding to spur
increased competitive-
ness in the higher edu-
cation sector is coming
from central and federal
government, as well as
corporate partnerships.
ProjEcT 5-100: rouTE To THE ToP
results driven research is key to reputation
From the top President Putin visits FEFU
arting to be felt among students and staff

4. 4 Sponsored supplement from Times Higher Education March 2015
For Russian universities
wanting world attention,
internationalising their
research is crucial.
Victoria Briggs finds out
how the 15 institutions
in Project 5-100 are
raising their profiles
Overseas collaborations
expand research horizons
T
he Russian Federation’s plan to have
five of its universities ranked among
the world’s top 100 by the end of the
decade is well under way.
“Russia was a strong performer in the
2015 Times Higher Education BRICS &
Emerging Economies Rankings…it made
dramatic improvements [compared with
2014], with seven 5-100 institutions in the
list,” says Phil Baty, THE’s rankings editor.
Two Russian universities appeared, too,
in the THE World University Rankings
2014-15 – Lomonosov Moscow State
University (equal 196th, up from the
226-250 group) and Novosibirsk State
University (301-350 group, first appearance).
According to Baty, the key for other Russian
institutions with global ambitions lies in the
internationalisation of their research.
“They need to publish more in English to
ensure that the work is properly dissemi-
nated and that scholars across the world can
access and understand the good work being
done in Russia,” he says, while also stress-
ing the importance of international research
collaborations. Multicultural teams, he says,
“tend to be more creative and to produce
research that is more influential”.
Andrey Volkov, one of the originators of
Project 5-100, comments that while “we did
not expect a great jump in one to two years,
we see significant growth of publications in
journals indexed by Scopus and Web of
Science; and many universities have estab-
lished new centres of excellence, started
interdisciplinary research and created inter-
national teams. From my point of view, for
such a short period, it is great progress.”
This latest look at the 5-100 universities
finds many of them actively involved in
World class Sergey Kobtsev of Novosibirsk State University leads scientific research in laser physics and innovative technologies

5. March 2015 Sponsored supplement from Times Higher Education 5
efforts to internationalise their research with
a diverse range of global partners, both
academic and commercial.
Sergei Rubin is professor of particle phys-
ics at Moscow’s National Research Nuclear
University MEPhI where he oversees several
scientific collaborations with international
partners, including the Atlas experiment at
Cern (the European Organisation for Nuclear
Research in Geneva) – where one of his team
participated in the discovery of the Higgs
boson – and the US-funded LUX-Zeplin
dark matter experiment.
Another collaboration is the Italian
Borexino experiment where MEPhI scien-
tists, with international colleagues, are
researching “new important data on solar
neutrinos”, says Rubin, the progress of
which has recently been published in Nature.
Based on analysis of data from the
European Space Agency’s Mars Express
mission, scientists at the Moscow Institute of
Physics and Technology (MIPT), working
with the Russian Academy of Sciences and
LATMOS in France, have obtained new
insights into the Martian climate. Last year,
the team discovered a new type of dust in the
planet’s atmosphere. In addition, it has
mapped the distribution and seasonal
variation of water vapour on Mars, based on
10 years of monitoring the planet from the
orbiter.
The Samara State Aerospace University, a
major space engineering institute, is prepar-
ing to launch its first nanosatellite into orbit
this year, along with the third small space-
craft made wholly from domestic components.
SSAU has also opened a new unit dedi-
cated to researching global navigation
systems. The work of the Navigation
Receivers Laboratory is led by Kai Borre,
professor of geodesy at Aalborg University
in Denmark. “In the future, the number of
satellites and signals will increase,” says
Borre, whose laboratory has plans to develop
new navigational features and capabilities.
Nuclear centres throughout the world,
medicine and many other fields,” he says.
ITMO University, St Petersburg, has just
launched its first joint medical project with its
neighbour, the Almazov Federal North-West
Medical Research Centre. The convergence
of medical and engineering sciences will be
a focus of the collaboration, with
ITMO University researchers developing
bioinformatic techniques in genomics and
working on technologies to manage chronic
diseases such as hypertension and diabetes.
Lobachevsky State University of Nizhni
Novgorod’s new Institute of Biology and
Biomedicine is also involved in pioneering
biotech research. Opened in December 2014,
it brings together all of the university’s
departments and activities related to biology
and medicine, with many of its students and
researchers receiving training abroad, for
example at University College London.
The Neuroscience Centre at the institute
attracts the largest proportion of research
funding, which counts among its main
advances a mathematical model that
describes the interaction between the
neuronal and astrocytic brain networks.
Moscow’s Higher School of Economics is
another centre conducting interdisciplinary
research into neuroscience. Established in
1992, the school’s first faculties were devoted
to economics and social sciences and soon
expanded into engineering and the
humanities. With the addition of the
Moscow State Institute of Electronics and
Mathematics in 2011, HSE began training
experts in electronic engineering,
telecommunications, computer security
and space technology.
Last year, it founded the first Russian
centre of neurotechnology, launching a
range of projects that included mapping
speech functions and the mathematical
modelling of decision-making processes.
New plans are under way to develop
as well as multinational companies such as
Samsung and Panasonic, use laser systems
developed at Siberia’s Novosibirsk State
University. Sergey Kobtsev leads its laser
physics and innovative technologies division.
He explains that NSU’s lasers are used for
advanced research into atom cooling and
trapping, the physics of nanostructures,
metamaterials and terahertz emitters.
Kobtsev’s laboratory is also working on an
atom optical clock and quantum magnetom-
eter. “We hope to create their prototypes for
commercial use soon, which will be in high
demand in navigation, telecommunications,
Multicultural teams tend
to be more creative and
produce research that is
more influential
Big impact National Research Nuclear University MEPhI participates in mega science projects
Leading the way the inorganic nanomaterials laboratory of Dmitri Golberg at MISiS
➤

6. 6 Sponsored supplement from Times Higher Education March 2015
neuro-engineering projects with interna-
tional partners that include the Helsinki
University Central Hospital.
Neuropharmacology is a major speciali-
sation at the Far Eastern Federal University’s
(FEFU’s) School of Biomedicine, which
lays claim to the creation of several drug
prototypes to improve memory and atten-
tiveness in diseases such as Alzheimer’s.
The school has research partnerships in place
with the University of California, San Diego,
and Taipei Medical University, which test the
pharmaceutical substances created at FEFU.
In addition, the university, on Russia’s
eastern coast, is a recipient of a government
“mega-grant” to conduct research into
biologically active substances produced from
marine organisms in the hope of developing
new vaccines.
Tomsk Polytechnic University in Siberia
last year opened a laboratory in collabora-
tion with Nobel laureate Dan Shechtman,
professor of materials science at the Technion
Israel Institute of Technology. According to
project manager Sergey Psakhie, the lab has
“ambitious goals” and work is in progress
on a new method to suppress tumour cells,
with collaborative research also being carried
out by Slovenia’s Jožef Stefan Institute.
TPU’s neighbour, Tomsk State University,
is conducting research into climate change
in the Arctic with scientists from the Obser-
vatoire Midi-Pyrénées. The French-Russian
team have discovered a decrease in the
region’s permafrost and the drying-up of
large lakes that play an important role in the
carbon cycle.
“We consider the most relevant prob-
lems of modern earth science,” says Oleg
Pokrovsky, who leads TSU’s BioClimLand
Centre. “We have begun to assess the
carbon stock in frozen soils [and] are
the first in the world to conduct this type
of research.”
The Ural Federal University is a 100-year-
old institution located in Russia’s mountain-
ous centre. Training for industry is one of its
missions, with collaborations that include
management consultants McKinsey & Co
and the Russian Ministry of Health. In
December, the university extended its strate-
gic partnership with academic publisher
Elsevier to share scientific expertise and best
practice with the aim of boosting its perfor-
mance in global rankings.
In other developments, its scientists are
researching technologies aimed at extracting
rare earth metals from uranium ore. Pilot
production is expected to begin shortly
which, say scientists, will promote economic
gains for Russia by reducing by a third its
dependency on rare earth metal imports.
Among the research being carried out at
the National University of Science and
Technology MISiS is a project to develop the
so-called “dream material” – a super-solid
nanocomposite, stronger than steel but
lighter than aluminium. Leading the project
is visiting scientist Dmitri Golberg from
Japan’s National Institute for Materials
Science. Last year, under the supervision of
Dmitry Luzgin – another visiting professor
from Japan – MISiS scientists developed a
unique hybrid of metallic glass for use in the
aerospace and healthcare sectors.
Peter the Great St Petersburg Polytechnic
University is researching new materials for
use in lithium ion batteries which, it is
Russian institutions
require strong strategic
partnerships to make a
big impact quickly
The bigger picture research is wide-ranging, but each Project 5-100 establishment can boast of being the best in Russia in particular fields
➤

7. March 2015 Sponsored supplement from Times Higher Education 7
The Far Eastern Federal University is a major
research and innovation centre with more than
35,000 domestic and international students, 368
laboratories and a brand new campus, the largest
in Russia. Its main development areas include
nanotechnology, biomedicine, geopolitics and
ocean resources.
The Higher School of Economics is the first
Russian university to be recognised by the
Institute of International Education, receiving an
honourable mention in the Internationalising the
Campus category of its Andrew Heiskell Awards.
It has 130 partnerships with international
establishments, including the United Nations
Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation
and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation
and Development.
ITMO University opened its first European office in
Brussels last year and plans for it to become a hub
for “educational and scientific cooperation with
colleagues from around the world”. The university’s
network of research laboratories is headed by
domestic and international researchers and
contributes significantly to ITMO’s research and
publication rates.
Kazan Federal University is Russia’s second-oldest
university and counts seven Nobel prizewinners
among its alumni. It offers 419 academic
programmes with courses that include biomedicine,
pharmaceutical science, oil production and
space technologies.
Lobachevsky State University of Nizhni Novgorod
is home to “Lobachevsky”, one of the world’s most
powerful supercomputers, and has partnerships in
place with 100 international higher education
institutions and scientific centres, as well as several
high-tech firms.
Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology came
69th in the BRICS & Emerging Economies Rankings
2015. Boasting eight Nobel prizewinners on faculty,
and two more among alumni, it has many strategic
partnerships in place, eg, with Samsung and Cern,
the European Organisation for Nuclear Research.
The National Research Nuclear University MEPhI
entered the physical sciences top 100 in the Times
Higher Education World University Rankings 2014-15
and took 13th place in the BRICS & Emerging
Economies Rankings 2015 – the highest placed of
the Project 5-100 universities. Its alumni include the
physicist and Nobel laureate Nikolay G. Basov.
The National University of Science and Technology
MISiS has 22 laboratories and research centres
under the guidance of leading scientists. The
recipient of several government mega-grants, MISiS
offers expertise in materials science, metallurgy,
mining and new technology.
Novosibirsk State University broke into the top 400
of the THE World University Rankings 2014-15 for
the first time and was placed 85th for physical
sciences. Last year, it launched 32 laboratories in
collaboration with worldwide scientific centres that
include Cern.
Peter the Great St Petersburg Polytechnic University
is the largest science and engineering research
institution in Russia’s northwest region. It has
partnerships in place with 327 universities and 75
companies around the world, including Siemens,
Philips, Schneider Electric, Bosch and LG.
St Petersburg Electrotechnical University
is a 129-year-old institution with more than
50 high-tech companies among its strategic
partners. Five of its faculty are members of the
Russian Academy of Sciences and its alumni
include the physics Nobel laureate Zhores I. Alferov.
Samara State Aerospace University provides
training in a wide variety of engineering disciplines,
providing unique skills that are fundamental to the
aerospace, aviation, electronics, metallurgy,
automotive and IT industries. It is renowned for its
international summer school on space technology
and science. SSAU has international collaborations
and agreements with 47 partner universities.
Tomsk Polytechnic University is one of only five of
the Project 5-100 universities to have won two
government mega-grants for the 2014-16 period.
Its alumni include two Nobel laureates,
as well as the inventors of the space drill and the
world’s first turbodrill.
Tomsk State University is the largest university in
the Asian part of Russia, comprising 43 leading
scientific schools. It places a strong emphasis on
innovation – in 2013, TSU scientists invented
prosthetic devices for fingers and toes using
nanoceramics.
Ural Federal University has 12 research laboratories
headed by leading international scientists, including
the French Nobel laureate Jean Jouzel. Former
Russian president Boris Yeltsin is an alumnus.
SpEcialiTiES and STrEngTHS of THE 15 projEcT 5-100 univErSiTiES
hoped, might be used to facilitate the transi-
tion from gas and diesel engines to electric
motors. The project is being conducted in
conjunction with a Chinese battery manufac-
turer, with whom St Petersburg has launched
a joint research laboratory to develop a
replacement for scarce and expensive cath-
ode materials. The project makes use of the
university’s unique research equipment and
its Chinese partner’s infrastructure.
The city is home, too, to St Petersburg
Electrotechnical University (LETI). It
recently received government funding to
begin research into “memristors”, a type of
electrical circuit. The research is being
conducted with the National Institute for
Materials Science in Japan and Finnish
company Beneq Oy. LETI has other partner-
ships with IBM and US software company
Epam Systems, with which it partners on IT
and nanotechnology research programmes.
IT developments are also the focus of
engineers at Kazan Federal University who
have created a fractal antenna that provides
improved wi-fi connectivity. The antenna is
three times smaller than the standard model
and so reduces production costs. According
to associate professor Dmitry Chikrin, head
of KFU’s department of autonomous robotic
systems, the US multinational Cisco is poised
to become an important project investor.
“Some of the Project 5-100 members
already make the world top 100 in their
specialist fields,” says THE’s Baty, who
believes that, with the right focus and
investment, other Russian institutions have
the potential to rise in global league tables
by 2020. To do that, he says, they require a
“clear specialist focus and strong strategic
partnerships to make a big impact quickly”.
Although it is too early to predict which
of the 5-100 institutions will eventually rank
among the global top tier of universities,
their collective commitment in rising to the
challenge set by the Russian Ministry of
Education is beyond doubt. l
Hands on a student at Moscow’s MIPT
accord Nobel laureate Alferov (centre) visits ITMO