LONDON, September 26. /TASS corr. Ilya Dmitryachev/. Thirty-five Russian universities have made the shortlist of the Times Higher Education (THE) University Rankings, published on Wednesday. The authors of the rating told a TASS correspondent that Russia has increased its presence in the 2019 listing by 8 universities, despite facing difficulties related to increasing global competition.

The definitive annual table covers 1,250 higher education institutions from 86 countries. The Lomonosov Moscow State University has retained its position as top Russian university, despite dropping five spots and placing 199th, compared to last year’s 194th place. It shares its position with Canada’s University of Calgary.

"The nation [Russia] has the potential to become a key global player in higher education, and several of its institutions have made significant progress in recent years," Editorial Director of Global Rankings for THE Phil Baty stated. "However, despite great strides having been taken by the nation’s leading universities since 2012, achieving the country’s ambitious Project 5-100 goal to elevate five institutions into the Top 100 by 2020 will be a daunting challenge, particularly in the face of increasingly intense global competition - and specifically from Asia," he added.

The nation’s second top institution is the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, retaining its position in the global top 300 (the 251-300 banding).

The Higher School of Economics joins the 301-350 band (compared to last year’s 351-400), showing improvement in research volume, citation impact and industry income and increasing international collaboration. The National Research Nuclear University MEPhI also managed to improve its ranking, advancing to the 351-400 banding with noted improvements to its teaching, research and international outlook scores.

The ITMO University, the Novosibirsk State University, the St. Petersburg State University, the Tomsk State University and the Tomsk Polytechnic University all place within the 501-600 range, while the Kazan Federal University, the National University of Science and Technology MISiS, Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University and the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia (RUDN) all take their spot in the 601-800 banding.

RUDN University becomes Russia’s highest riser for 2019, having dropped out of the top 1000 last year. The study cites "improvements in its teaching environment, citation impact (research influence) and international outlook scores."

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings are published for the 15th time. The researchers studied 13 performance indicators divided into five groups: teaching, international outlook, industry income, research and citations. The Oxford University (UK), Cambridge University (UK) and Stanford University (US) claimed the first three spots of the rating.