Vilnius University one of 600 best schools in the world

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

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

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

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

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

"Our success isprimarily a result of the efforts we have made. We have applied to the authorsof the university index more than a year ago with a suggestion that they shouldattempt to evaluate us. The university testing process took time - theycollected information about VU, sent inquiries to experts and decided toinclude us in the index this spring," Lazutka told The Baltic NewsService.

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

The pro-rector said that Lithuania's Baltic neighbors Latviaand Estonia are not listed inthe 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 bestuniversities.