Vilnius University one of 600 best schools in the world

Nov 05, 2008
TBT staff in cooperation with BNS

VILNIUS-Vilnius University (VU) has for the first time qualified to be counted among the 600 best universities of the world, reports VU Strategic Development Pro-Rector Juozas Rimantas Lazutka.

Meanwhile, the Lithuanian presidential advisor Nerija Putinaite says that the VU listing in the index is probably due to the university's management capacities rather than its new achievements in quality.

Published in October, the Times Higher Education - QS index of the world's 600 best universities lists VU in the group of 501-600 places.

"The index specifies positions 1-400, while the following universities are divided in two large groups: 401-500 and 501-600," said Lazutka.

The universities in the groups 401-500 and 501-600 are listed in alphabetical order due to availability of fewer data to evaluate each university, according to the website of the authors of the index.

"Our success is primarily a result of the efforts we have made. We have applied to the authors of the university index more than a year ago with a suggestion that they should attempt to evaluate us. The university testing process took time - they collected information about VU, sent inquiries to experts and decided to include us in the index this spring," Lazutka told The Baltic News Service.

In his words, the main criteria for the inclusion of the Vilnius University in the index was financing, number of students and the number of foreign students. The universities were rated by the assessment of academic experts and employers, the ratio of lecturers and students, and numbers of lecturers and students from abroad.

The pro-rector said that Lithuania's Baltic neighbors Latvia and Estonia are not listed in the index, while Poland and the Czech Republic have four universities each, Russia has five, Hungary two and Lithuania, Romania and Slovenia each have one university among the world's 600 best universities.

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