1. Bric's Countries in the Webometrics Ranking of World Universities
BERSHADSKAYA MARGARITA (RESEARCH UNIVERSITY-HIGHER SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS, MOSCOW), VOZNESENSKAYA YULIA (MODERN UNIVERSITY FOR THE HUMANITIES, MOSCOW)
Third ISA Forum of Sociology
July 10-14, 2016, Vienna, Austria
Session Selection: The Knowledge Society and the Brics: Economic and Social Implications

2. NUMBER OF RANKED UNIVERSITIES
WEB RANKUNG OF WORLD UNIVERSITIES - THE ONLY ONE OF THE GLOBAL RANKINGS OF UNIVERSITIES, STIMULATING THE DEVTLOPMENT OF MASS HIGHER EDUCATION
BROAD COVERAGE OF UNIVERSITIES (20 THOUSAND RANKED UNIVERSITIES) OPENS UP THE POSSIBILITY OF COMPREHENSIVE REGULAR ANALYSIS OF NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL SYSTEMS.
BEING FOLLOWERS OF MASS EDUCATION, WE REGULARLY PUBLISH THE RESULTS OF THE RATING, COMPARING NATIONAL SYSTEMS OF HIGHER EDUCATION
NUMBER OF RANKED UNIVERSITIES

3. Features of the methodology
Methodological framework for the comparative assessment of magnitude of mass higher education is based on a synthesis of the results of countries by the number of national universities included in several thousands of the best world universities.
Unlike most authors, considering the performance of the country in top 100, 200, 500, 1000 (N100, N200, N500, N1000), and thereby characterizing the elite education in the country, we determine the number of national universities starting with 2000 best universities in the world and up to
The comparison is made by six main indicators:
N2000, N3000, N4000, N5000, N10000, N20000.
The assessment of the quality of mass higher education is made on a conditional parameter that indirectly characterizes the quality of mass education in a country / region: the share of ranked universities included in top 5000 (N5000) in the number of ranked universities in top (N20000):
N5000/N20000

4. NUMBER OF NATIONAL UNIVERSITIES
Starting with January 2012, webometrics ranks universities of the world. such scale of studies is presented for the first time
The sharp increase in the number of universities being ranked in revealed the scale of the system of higher education in such countries as India (3rd place in the total number of universities ranked), Mexico, Iran, Poland, Indonesia, Pakistan, Ukraine, Columbia, Philippines (yellow bars)
NUMBER OF NATIONAL UNIVERSITIES
OF 207 COUNTRIES CONSIDERED IN THESE RANKINGS ONLY 22 COUNTRIES HAVE MORE THAN 200 NATIONAL UNIVERSITIES IN THE TOP

5. NUMBER OF NATIONAL UNIVERSITIES
Indicator N20000
NUMBER OF NATIONAL UNIVERSITIES
0NLY 20 COUNTRIES HAVE INDICATOR N MORE THAN 200
IN THE TOP FIVE COUNTRIES - FOUR BRIC'S COUNTRIES (BLUE BARS) WITH THE TOTAL NUMBER OF UNIVERSITIES IN THE TOP 20000, EQUAL TO 5408 (27% OF 20000)

6. Growth of the network activity of universities

7. Ranking by Areas N5000 N20000 N10000 N4000 Brics: N3000 N2000
the indicator N at the European level;
reduction of other indicators as compared to the level of Asia, America, Europe.
N3000
N2000

8. SIMILAR INDICATORS OF QUALITY OF MASS UNIVERSITIES IN THE REGIONS
As we can see, the ratio of the number of Asian, American and European universities in the top 5000 to the their number among universities varies in the range 22-29%:
Asia (1650/7402) – 22%
America (1779/6105) – 29%
Europe (1422/5511) – 26%
In the Brics countries the ratio of number N5000 to N20000 is much less :
Bric (961/5530) – 17%

9. THE MAGNITUDE OF MASS HIGHER EDUCATION IN THE COUNTRIES
Country
Indicators of magnitude of mass higher education
N20000
N10000
N5000
N4000
N3000
N2000
USA
3286
2594
1216
918
667
457
China
2033
1163
440
322
242
152
Russia
1178
402
138 91 47 22
India
1229
369
187
146 85 31
Brazil
1001
320
176 97 56
Japan
982
570
303
252
193
120
France
548
271
166
150
130 99
Mexico
498
107 59 50 34 21
Iran
475
181
109 93 64 26
Germany
447
308
158
121 79
Poland
401 81 73 62 41
Korea
168
102 89 68 5
Indonesia
337
221 65 43 8
Canada
317
177 74 58 49 UK
287
203
142
133
122
108
Ukraine
262 30 24 14 4
Columbia
229 51 11
Italy
219
116 77 67
Spain
214
118 66 55
Pakistan
200
170 19 12
Six indicators for twenty countries with large-scale system of higher education (N20000 more than 200)
In each column of the table the best ten indicators are colod
THE RESULTS OF THE TOP ARE A CLEAR EVIDENCE OF THE MAGNITUDE OF HIGHER EDUCATION IN BRICS COUNTRIES:
China, Russia, India, Brazil count total:
27% of universities in the top (5440 universities);
22,5% of universities in the top (2554 universities);
19% of universities in the top 5000 (941 universities);
Composition of ten leading countries in the number of national universities is changing depending on the sampling of the best world universities:
China and Brazil are leaders by all major indicators;
India is among the top ten countries by five main indicators;
Russia is among the top ten countries by four main indicators

10. The top ten countries by number of national universities in different samples of the best universities in the world
Composition of ten leading countries in the number of national universities is changing depending on the sampling of the best world universities:
Six countries – the United States, China, Japan, Brazil, France and Germany – are leaders by all major indicators.
India and the United Kingdom - by five indicators.
Russia and Taiwan - by four indicators.
Iran - by three indicators.
Mexico, Korea, Italy, Spain - by own indicator.
Poland, Canada, Ukraine, Columbia, Pakistan - zero
Fig. 4. The top ten countries by number of national universities in different samples of the best universities in the world (number of universities in the country are shown in parentheses)

11. INDICATORS OF THE QUALITY OF MASS HIGHER EDUCATION
The countries with the large-scale system of higher education
THE USE OF THE RATIO OF NATIONAL UNIVERSITIES IN THE TOP 5000 AND TOP AS A CONDITIONAL INDICATOR OF THE QUALITY OF MASS UNIVERSITIES LEADS IN YULY 2014 TO AN UNEXPECTED RESULT - THE UNDOUBTED SUPERIORITY OF CHINA .
N5000 /N20000
Among the countries with the large-scale system of higher education China was leading: in July 2014 over 60% of ranked universities of China entered 5000 best universities in the world.
BAT THE SHARP INCREASE OF CHINESE UNIVERSITIES IN THE RANKING CAUSED THE DECREASE OF THE INDICFTOR N5000 /N20000
Indicators of quality are even lower in the other BRICS countries, especially in Russia.

12. RESULTS OF RUSSIAN UNIVERSITIES
N2000, N3000, N5000
in 15 rankings
In general, the dynamics is positive, despite the fluctuations in the values from ranking to ranking. The best results are of three rankings: January 2012, July 2012 and January In the next two rankings - July 2013 and January Russian universities after a period of stable improvement of their positions reduced the rates to the average level.

13. FEDERAL DISTRICTS OF RUSSIA IN THE WORLD EDUCATIONAL SPACE
As in previous rankings ( ), universities of different regions of the country (federal districts) are among the best universities of Russia.
In the July 2014 ranking, starting with the sample of top 4000, the universities of all seven Federal districts are among the world best universities.
DISTRIBUTION OF 119 RUSSIAN UNIVERSITIES BY FEDERAL DISTRICTS IN THE SAMPLE OF TOP 4000 WORLD UNIVERSITIES (JULY 2014)
In several previous rankings representation of all districts started with the top 3000.

14. RESULTS, FORECASTS, CHALLENGES FOR THE FUTURE
In 20 thousand of the best universities in the world, about 30% are in the BRIC countries:
Based on the scale of higher education systems (indicator N20000) BRICS countries are among the top five countries of the world: 2-4 places (after the USA): China – 2033, India , Russia , Brazil – 1001;
two BRICS countries (China, Brazil) are among the top ten countries in all six indicators; India is among the top ten in five indicators, Russia - in four.
Among the countries with large-scale system of higher education
(N more then 1000) only the United States has a relatively high indicator of the quality of mass higher education in January In China, holding the second position, the quality of mass universities is much lower (22% compared to 37%) . The other BRICS countries have low indicators (Brazil – 18%, India 15%, Russia 12%).
Estimates of the magnitude of mass higher education systems adopted for this study include only those universities that are among the best universities in the world.
This means that each indicator, in contrast to the educational data statistics, includes qualitative aspect, which naturally increases with decreasing sample of top universities.