Russian institutions of higher education in international rankings: the problem social and environmental sustainability

. The article analyzes the place of Russian institutions of higher education in the world leading university rankings not only by educational indicators but also taking into account social and environmental impact. For the study two of the most authoritative rankings: Shanghai University ranking and «QS World University Rankings» were selected, as they are recognized by the majority of the global academic community and try to tackle the world’s greatest environmental, social and governance challenges. The appeal to the international research is due to the fact that recently the importance of the compliance of Russian higher education with leading world standards has been admitted not only at the highest level, but also in the professional circles. We have analyzed the results for the last several years, the basic criteria of the international rankings, the place of Russian universities, and identified positions in which Russian universities are inferior to leading universities World University Rankings.


Introduction
The publication of the global rankings of world universities results is one of the most anticipated events in the global academic environment.Despite some shortcomings in the methodology, which are noted by a number of scientists [1; 2], the impact of rankings is multidimensional.They form the development agenda not only for individual universities, but also for the educational policy of entire countries.Each country has its own interests in terms of higher education rankings, and therefore the impact of the rankings seems to be allencompassing.
In the last fifteen to twenty years, the phenomenon of "world-class university" has emerged in the higher education environment [3].Many universities, both in the west and in the east, are striving to acquire this status.Despite its controversial nature, today it is difficult to deny the fact that international university rankings have a great influence on the life of the academic community, on the choice of applicants and their parents, and on the choice of employers [4].Despite the fact that many leaders of higher education institutions announced that one should not rely on rankings and league tables for everything, it is difficult for us to ignore the growing influence of the results of ongoing research on the activities of modern universities [5].
The system of Russian higher education is no exception.At various levels, statements have been repeatedly made that domestic education must comply with international standards and requirements.
President of Russia V.V. Putin in his speeches has repeatedly noted that Russia needs a competitive educational system, science, which could defend the sovereignty of the country, its technological security.And the results of international rankings should be taken into account [6].The "The concept of long-term socio-economic development of the Russian Federation" stated that "competition of national education systems has become a key element of global competition that requires constant updating of technologies, accelerated development of innovations, and rapid adaptation to the demands and requirements of a dynamically changing world" [7].Successful competition of Russian universities in the international arena will make them more attractive to foreign students, which, in turn, will bring more income to both universities and the country itself.
According to Dill and Soo [8], educational institutions can utilize international rankings data to secure funding and attract highly skilled researchers, thereby significantly enhancing their prospects in the educational services market.From a scientific standpoint, universities require such rankings to enhance the effectiveness of their research endeavors by engaging in internationally organized projects and by welcoming doctoral students and researchers [9].
During the 21st century, the Internet has emerged as the primary channel for enticing applicants and scientists from diverse nations.It is extensively employed to showcase and highlight the multifaceted capabilities of universities, encompassing their academic, scientific, and educational prowess.Consequently, educational institutions can disseminate their knowledge beyond the confines of their physical campuses, leading to heightened competition among universities in the online realm.

Materials and Methods
International university rankings, which could be combined into a single "league table" for comparative purposes and which gave a powerful impetus to the development of domestic and international competition in the field of education, consolidated the concept of "worldwide university competition or market".The most influential global rankings are the Academic Ranking of World Universities (Shanghai University ranking), first published in 2003, and QS World University Rankings, the first edition of which was published in 2004.The Global Rankings immediately gained great prominence in the field of higher education, politics and public life and already had a noticeable impact on the activities of higher education institutions and national higher education policies in many countries.Despite some criticism of the research methodology from the scientific community (especially at universities and countries where the results turned out to be worse than expected), few people actively resisted these studies.With this in mind, universities recognize that they need to take steps to succeed within the framework of the existing methodology.International rankings have become a powerful incentive for universities to improve their positions, especially in the Shanghai ranking, which ranks the top 1000 universities.Within the framework of national systems, rankings cause many universities to strive to occupy the highest possible positions, which is a symbol of national achievement and prestige, as well as an engine of economic growth in the global knowledge economy.Global rankings stimulate international competition for top researchers and top young professionals.All this strengthens the significance of the rankings themselves and serves to further increase competition in the field of education.
In this study, we analyze the positions of Russian universities in such rankings as the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ranking of Shanghai University), QS World University Rankings, and Webometrics ranking, and also determine the criteria by which domestic universities lose out to the world's leading universities.
To achieve these goals, we used the following research methods: analysis of scientific literature and synthesis on the research problem, a comparative method.

Results
The analysis of the results of Russian higher educational institutions shows that domestic education does not occupy a leading position in the world.For example, in the Academic Ranking of World Universities, only two Russian universities regularly make it into the top 300 universities: Moscow State University and Saint Petersburg State University.In general, 17 Russian universities were included in the QS ranking of 500 universities in 2023.First of all, it should be noted that foreign researchers consider universities as research organizations.In Russian universities, the main attention is paid to educational activities, and this is not taken into account in world rankings.In addition, science is mainly concentrated at universities.As for Russia, the majority of scientific research is carried out in the centers of the Russian Academy of Sciences.Science is represented much less at ordinary universities.At the same time, research, according to many experts, determines the quality of higher education.
Foreign experts in their articles point out that the main reason for the failure of Russian universities to take leading positions is due to insufficient funding of the higher education system.This is also one of the reasons for the small number of significant publications in international journals included in various databases [11].Domestic higher education institutions are also poorly integrated into the global information space.Most of the research is not familiar to the world scientific community.countries.Accordingly, the citation index, which is one of the main indicators in assessing research activities and the level of faculty, is very low among representatives of Russian universities.In the ranking of Shanghai University, the most disastrous indicator is the frequency of citation of scientific developments of our scientists.According to this indicator, Moscow State University scored 0 points in 2022, and St. Petersburg State University scored only 9.7, which is significantly lower than that of universities from other countries.Russian universities lag far behind the top ten universities in terms of such an indicator as "the number of articles published in the journals Nature and Science" (Table 4).Our universities are also inferior in the field of international activity.The share of foreign students in Russian universities is much lower than in leading universities.And a world-class university should ensure high mobility of the teaching staff (departure of its own employees abroad, inviting famous world scientists); student mobility; the share of foreign students in the total number of students.The leader among our universities is RUDN University, followed by MGIMO University.
It is necessary for domestic universities to improve the ratio of graduate students and students, which positively affect research activities.
However, with regard to publication in journals and citation, there have been positive changes in recent years.Much ahead is Moscow State University, then is St. Petersburg State University.And still they are inferior to the best American, English, German and Japanese universities.
The main difference between the QS ranking and the Shanghai University ranking is that it does not take into account past achievements (for example, the number of people who received the Nobel Prize), but the current characteristics of universities, which are mostly (40%) based on the results of peer review.As a result, the position of Moscow State University and St. Petersburg State University is much worse in this ranking, since in the ranking of Shanghai University, Moscow State University has good positions in terms of Nobel laureates.But at St Petersburg University there are none of them, as well as in other universities of the country.It is explained by the fact that Nobel laureates, as a rule, do not work at Russian universities.This was the result of the fact that in our country, science is concentrated in the Research Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and not at universities, so domestic universities occupy extremely low positions in global rankings.However, today such a development model cannot satisfy the trends that exist in the global university environment.In order to occupy worthy places in the world, it is necessary to integrate science and education at universities.Not very high positions are occupied by domestic universities in the ranking of sites (Webometrics).Moscow State University ranks 206th [12].
The main drawback is a poor English version of the site or its absence at all.The lack of cooperation with partners in placing links to the site, as well as weak work with a system such as Google Scholar negatively affect the ranking.
After analyzing the results of the ranking, the experts make the following recommendations to higher education institutions [13]: -the domain name of the university must be present in the website addresses of all departments; -all employees of the university should actively participate in filling the website; -it is necessary to place links to the university website on the websites of educational institutions in the region, in the web catalogs of educational institutions, on specialized thematic portals and personal pages of specialists; -it is necessary to make an English version of the site (both the main page and other sections), as well as translate scientific publications; -the site must have access to archival information; -the website must contain both text and multimedia materials.The Webometrics ranking is of great interest to representatives of the expert community.This is due to the fact that technologization and automation of rankings allows you to compare a large number of universities.Almost 12,000 higher education institutions from all over the world are represented on the ranking website (and the sample is 22,000) [14].More than a hundred universities are represented there from Russia.
Thus, today, without a doubt, there are many problems in education, and its condition leaves much to be desired.However, if we solve the technical reasons that do not allow universities to occupy high positions in the ranking of sites, then this, despite the problematic state of education in general, will allow us to achieve much better results.

Discussion
After analyzing the position of Russian universities in the three leading world rankings: the Shanghai University ranking, the QS World University Rankings and the Webometrics ranking of university websites, we were able to identify areas in which Russian universities are inferior to the world's leading universities: -provision of resources; -the degree of integration into the international information space (most of the scientific research developments remain unknown to the international community); -article citation index; -the number of publications in the journals Nature and Science; -international activity (the number of foreign students is much less than in the leading universities of the world); -insufficient content of the websites of universities.Thus, in order to improve their positions in international rankings, Russian universities need to: -return most of the research to universities; -purposefully increase the number of published articles in scientific journals that are included in various international databases; -qualitative improvement of sites that should be as informative as possible, as well as the publication of articles not only in Russian, but also in several foreign languages.Thus, the conduct of scientific research of a fundamental and applied nature at universities is becoming more and more recognized by the Russian scientific community.And the integration of research activities and education should not be an addition to the educational process, but become its integral part.Attracting students to scientific work and practical research will prepare specialists who can compete in the labor market with graduates of the most advanced scientific and technological schools in the world.

Table 1 .
Positions of Russian universities in the ARWU ranking

Table 2 .
Positions of Russian universities in the QS 200 ranking

Table 3 .
Positions of Russian universities in the Webometrics ranking January 2023

Table 4 .
[11]results of domestic universities in comparison with the results of the top ten universities (2022)[11]