For the first time Irkutsk State University entered the most prestigious world ranking of top universities, which is published annually by the British magazine Times Higher Education (THE). Only 48 Russian universities entered the global ranking. In total, there are 1527 universities ranked by THE (from 93 countries). ISU is the only university of Baikal region in the ranking.

Times Higher Education World University Rankings is one of the most respected world university rankings. THE is officially recognized by the Russian Government and it is the basic factor to evaluate the effectiveness of universities participating in "5-100 program". The advantage of THE ranking is an improved methodology elaborated in collaboration with the magazine editors, readers and Thomson Reuters Company. At present, Elsevier company and Scopus database have an influence on the ranking's methodology. Thus, one of the key conditions to be ranked by THE is publishing at least 1,000 scientific articles for the period of 5 years in the journals indexed in the Scopus database, supported by the Elsevier publisher.

- We set the task to enter THE ranking in 2013 year, and all of further steps were taken in relation to achieving this goal. Therefore, entering THE ranking, without any doubt, is an important and significant result of the efforts of entire university. The entering of ISU to THE ranking, definitely, will make it possible to more effectively promote ISU at the global level. Besides ISU, only 3 Russian federal and national research universities were included in the THE ranking for the first time. The task for the coming years is to improve our positions in the THE ranking, consolidating the status of ISU as a leading center for research and higher education in the Baikal region and the Russian Federation, - ISU acting rector, prof. Alexander Schmidt, noted.

Among Russian universities Moscow State University named after M. Lomonosov is placed on the first position, the second – MIPT, the third – HSE. Irkutsk State University is placed in a group with such large Russian universities as South Federal University, Ural Federal University, The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), Far Eastern Federal University, Siberian Federal University, etc. Many of them were supported by 5-100 program.

In the ranking there were used 13 performance indicators, grouped into the 5 categories: teaching, research, citations, income from industry and international cooperation. In addition, the ranking is influenced by the analysis of more than 80 million citations from 13 million scientific publications as well as a survey of 22,000 scientists from around the world.