On Thursday, November 23, a new Quality Rating of Russian universities, related to training specialists in the field of artificial intelligence, was presented. It was created by the Association “AI Alliance” and the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation by order of the President. The Rating purpose is to establish the system of evaluating universities developing AI areas, for improving the quality of training specialists, provide objective information on universities to enrollees and the state.

As Andrey Omelchuk, Deputy Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, noted at the today press conference dedicated to the Rating presentation, the department faces an ambitious task: by 2030, it will have reached at least 15.5 graduates in AI per year. “Artificial intelligence technologies are of great significance in scientific research, especially when it comes to megascience, the climate agenda, medicine and other priority areas of our country’s development. However, it is impossible to develop this scientific and applied area without training personnel, for which demand from industry and business grows every year”, he noted.

“We consider this Rating as a guideline for business. After reviewing it, the employer will see which universities train relevant specialists in AI. It is important that the key criterion of the Rating is demand for graduates”, emphasized Olga Tsukanova, Executive Director of the Sber Directorate of Academic Partnerships.

The first Rating includes 180 universities from 64 regions of the country; the review presents 71 universities of the Central Federal District, 29 — from the Volga Federal District, 24 — from the Northwestern Federal District, 22 — from the Siberian Federal District.
ITMO, MFTI and the Higher School of Economics topped the Rating, to be assigned by experts to the “A+” Group. In total, the Rating is divided into 12 groups, Samara University is included in the “D+” Group.

The experts identified 4 groups of criteria, by which they ranked the universities: demand for graduates in hiring, relevance of the learning process in the field of AI, the educational environment and activity in developing school education. Moreover, the first version of the Rating includes only universities with bachelor's degree programs in the field of AI.
 
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The analytical base of the review is based on data from open sources, survey results, and data on graduate salaries, received from the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation.

The core data were obtained during the survey of employer companies, and the survey of students. The survey of employers was conducted in two stages, with over 150 companies interviewed. The companies represent the following industries: agriculture, retail and wholesale trade, transport and logistics, healthcare and pharmaceuticals, oil and gas and chemical production, metallurgy, mechanical engineering, information technology, information technology consulting, telecom, software development, finance.

The Rating experts also considered the publication and Olympiad activities of students and university staff, studied the quality of educational programs in the field of mathematical and computer sciences, assessed the salary level of graduates of AI specialties, based on the level of training of applicants in the field of mathematics and informatics.