RUR 2021: St Petersburg University is ranked the world top university by research indicator ‘Doctoral degrees awarded per admitted PhD’ in medical sciences

On 20 September, RUR World University Rankings published the results of the two rankings for the quality of teaching in broad subject areas: medical sciences and life sciences.

St Petersburg University has shown a significant quality improvement in the preparation of young physicians for their theses’ defences due to the high requirements that St Petersburg University imposes on applicants for the degrees of a Candidate and a Doctor of Sciences. Looking back, in 2013, St Petersburg University became the first university in Russia that was the first in the post-Soviet era to regain the right to hold defences according to its own rules. Today, the degree of a candidate or doctor of science awarded by St Petersburg University is an international symbol of the University's reputation for high quality and standards. Also, it means that applicants have to prepare a high-quality thesis to be awarded an academic degree.

Also, St Petersburg University has shown significant growth in the field of medical sciences by the indicator of financial sustainability moving from 443^rd place to 151^st place in the world. The remarkable thing is that earlier the high quality of financial management was confirmed by the results of the annual monitoring of financial activities carried out by the Ministry of Finance of the Russian Federation. St Petersburg University became the top university and the second one (after the Russian Foundation for Basic Research) among organisations and chief administrators of federal revenues in Russia.

The Round University Ranking is an international university ranking published by RUR Rankings Agency in partnership with an international company Clarivate Analytics. The ranking assesses the performance of several hundred top universities according to 20 indicators that measure four areas of university activity:  teaching; research; international diversity; and financial sustainability.

St Petersburg University is listed among the world’s top 100 universities, improving its position by two indicators in the field of medical sciences: Doctoral degrees awarded per academic staff (moved from 322^nd place to 64^th one) and Research income per citations (moved from 348^th place to 72^nd one).

Just in a year, St Petersburg University has moved up 10 positions from 192^nd place to 182^nd place in the ranking list in life sciences. In addition, St Petersburg University improved its position in the teaching ranking, moving from 85^th place to 61^st place.