Improving the global competitiveness of Abai KazNPU: opportunities and prospects

Today for the management staff of Abai KazNPU conducted an online seminar dedicated to the analysis of the current situation, opportunities and prospects of Abai University in the international QS ranking with the participation of Regional Director S.V. Khristolyubov and Chairman of the Board-Rector D.N. Bilyalov.

On the opening of seminar, D.N. Bilyalov noted that today Abai University occupies the position #511-520 in the global QS ranking, emphasizing the importance of further promotion, he set the goal for the staff to enter the university in TOP 500 world universities. At the same time, he highlighted that promotion in the QS global ranking of universities is an insurance strategic priority and included in National plan for the development of higher education.

During the seminar, S.V. Khristolyubov presented a complete vision of the university`s positions in the QS ratings, noting that the volume of data on a wide range of issues is important for making informed management decisions. This year for the first time KazNPU named after Abai took part in the Asian regional ranking, reaching the 147th point of the rating. Asia as a macroregion is represented by 128 universities in China, 118 in India, 106 in Japan, 88 in South Korea, 50 in Pakistan, 32 in Kazakhstan. When analyzing the Asian ranking, were emphasized the importance of access to higher education, the speaker compared the number of universities to the number of the population and cited an interesting fact that the competition for the Indian Institute of Technology (IITs) is 40 thousand people for the one place, i.e. the high rating of the university in the specialized field allows you to select young talents. For systematic promotion, it is important to compare indicators, identify gaps and find growth points.

According to the updated QS methodology, the main indicators of QS WUR-2024 and the percentage ratio in the analysis are as follows:
-Academic reputation- 30%;
-Employer reputation -15%;
-Employment Outcomes - 5%;
-Citation per paper - 20%;
- Faculty student ratio - 10%;
-International Research Network - 5%;
- Sustainability - 5%;
-International faculty ratio - 5%;
-International student ratio - 5%.

Three of the 9 indicators are new - the International Research Network, Sustainability and the Employment Outcomes. Accordingly, the first one is calculated by fractions, where the numerator is the number of joint publications with partner universities, the denominator is the number of countries, the more countries, the better the index of collaborations. Today, as part of the new cycle of the global ranking, a survey of academic experts and employers is taking place, which in total gives 45%. To determine the number of citations per publication in April, the indicators for the Scopus database will be removed. In the last year or two, the publication activity of scientists of Kazakhstan in journals of I-II quartiles, according to the speaker, has increased to 58%.

At the end of the seminar, A.T.Kulsarieva, Vice-Rector for Strategy, Digitalization and Internationalization, expressed readiness of HEI for further development of cooperation with QS and the need to consolidate the efforts of the entire team for sustainable positioning of the university in the leading QS ranking.