Aleksey Loginov: "Philosophical education in the Urals has a glorious history"

13:06, June 15, 2021

Philosophers of the university ranked high in the QS subject rankings

Ural Federal University's Philosophy ranking is the highest among all Ural Federal University's academic fields of study in the QS 2021 subject ranking, entrenched in the 101-150 group. According to Aleksey Loginov, who has been in charge of promoting UrFU in the QS Philosophy ranking since 2018, the ranking is as far from an average impression of the university as possible as a whole.

"The QS subject ranking evaluates the success of the university in a particular scientific field and takes into account three groups of indicators: the academic reputation of scientific schools, the opinion of employers about graduates and the level of scientific publications of employees. The given ranking is called subject ranking for a reason - it does not take into account, for example, the availability of parking lots within walking distance, the number of budgetary places at the university or the cost of accommodation in the dormitories," noted Aleksey Loginov.

According to the philosopher, the QS subject ranking is targeted for those who study philosophy and who would like to start studying it when choosing a university. It's also an international ranking, which makes it important that philosophers at the university rank 102nd out of 200 possible.

"Speaking of QS rankings, they mention the cluster. For example, our 102nd position is in the 101-150 cluster, but I think the difference between 102nd and 150th place within the same cluster is understandable," Loginov stressed.

According to the philosopher, the components of success correlate with the evaluation criteria. First, philosophy education in the Urals has a glorious history.

"Our Department of Philosophy, formerly the Philosophy Department of Ural State University, was one of the universally recognized philosophical schools of the Soviet Union. In this sense, we had a definite legacy of academic reputation, carefully nurtured by our professors. Then, our young assistant professors, primarily English-speaking, spoke at conferences abroad and took internships at Western universities, enhancing our reputation by bringing in the feedback of our foreign colleagues. Finally, the many major grants from the Russian Science Foundation that our colleagues have won over the past five years, as well as the annual specialized conferences organized at the department, have also played a role in making us even more visible in the international arena," said the associate professor.

Loginov emphasizes that the breakthrough in the ranking was quite different. At some point, philosophers reached the number of articles in philosophy journals indexed by Scopus required by the QS, so that the reputation of philosophers could be credited.

"I am convinced that if we had reached the required number of articles five years ago-we would have made the ranking even then, albeit in lower positions. So personally for me there was nothing unexpected in the fact that we were in the ranking. Very serious organizational work was done, but there was also much to work with," Aleksey Loginov commented.

The Department of Philosophy is part of the educational space of the university, so it also introduces innovations to educational programs.

"Whether and how it will affect the ranking, we will only know when the current students become graduates and are employed - the word of an employer also matters. When it comes to the rapid impact of education on academic rankings, I would point to the department's master's programs, and among them the all-English-language Political Philosophy. Many of its graduates continue their academic careers abroad, and some more foreign philosophical colleagues learn about us," said Loginov.

The very fact of being in the ranking is a major symbolic capital, and the competition for universities to have it will only increase.

"I am pleased with the following: last year we entered the QS subject ranking at 133rd position right away, and that was the best result in general for all the fields of study at UrFU. This year - plus 31 positions upwards, to the hundred. The trend is encouraging, but the prospects will depend on how well we continue to work, including conducting topical research for the international philosophical community and publishing articles of the highest level," Aleksey Loginov summed up.