Irina Lazutina - MSc in Cultural Management, Researcher at the Centre for International Comparative Studies of the International Organisations Research Institute (IORI) of the National Research University Higher School of Economics,20, Myasnitskaya, 101000, Moscow, Russian Federation; E-mail:ilazutina@hse.ru

Olga Perfilieva - PhD in Sociology, Director of the Centre for International Comparative Studies of the International Organisations Research Institute (IORI) ofthe National Research University Higher School of Economics, 20, Myasnitskaya, 101000, Moscow, Russian Federation; E-mail:Perfilieva@hse.ru

Lubov Zavarykina - MEd, Researcher at the Centre for International Comparative Studies of the International Organisations Research Institute (IORI) of the National Research University Higher School of Economics,20, Myasnitskaya, 101000, Moscow, Russian Federation; E-mail:lzavarykina@hse.ru

Abstract

The approbation of the template methodology developed within the project  «Developing and Approbating a Template Methodology for National Ranking of Higher Education Institutions» implemented by the National Training Foundation took place in 2012. Quantitative data were received from more than 100 higher education institutions.  Stakeholders’ comments, reflections, and recommendations on the developed tool, indicators, methods of data collection, processing, and presentation of the ranking results were collected in the course of approbation. Simultaneously, a series of  surveys were carried out to gauge the stakeholders’ attitudes to the methodology.  Qualitative evaluation of the methodology was based on the results of interviews, focus-groups and consultations with experts, academic community, students and employers. The article discusses outcomes of the conducted qualitative research on the stakeholders’ attitudes, their needs and expectations of the template methodology for a multidimensional ranking of Russian higher education institutions. It was revealed that stakeholders are more interested in multidimensional ranking as it reflects their need for transparent ranking system and relevant indicators and it takes into account the complexity of the Russian higher education system. The research demonstrated that various groups of stakeholders (students, HEIs staff, education authorities, representatives of employers) assess relevancy of the suggested set of indicators differently. Each group of stakeholders expresses interest in rankings of separate groups of universities (technical, medical etc.) as these rankings meet the stakeholders’ needs.  The paper concludes with provisions for further methodology amendments in accordance with the research findings.