For the second year in a row, Riga Technical university (RTU) remains recognized in international rating of higher education institutions, U-Multirank as one of 25 leading universities in the world in terms of the proportion of Open Access Publications. This means that a significant amount of RTU researchers' publications can be found in open access scientific journals, making the research results available to all interested parties. For several years in a row, RTU has steadily been the best in this rating in comparison with all Latvian higher education institutions included in the rating.
The U-Multirank rating consists of five parts – the study process, research, technology transfer or valorisation, internationalization, and regional involvement, and in each of these parts higher education institutions are evaluated according to several criteria. This rating is important for Latvian higher education institutions because the Ministry of Education and Science since 2016 has included a condition for participation in U-Multirank in agreements with higher education institutions on the allocation of budget funding.
The performance of higher education institutions in each field is assessed on a scale from A, which means the highest rating, to E. RTU is the only Latvian higher education institution that has received the highest number of A level evaluations – 13. A level evaluations are received for notable results in criteria such as proportion open access publications, employment rate of graduates and the number of self-founded or spin-off companies, funding attracted to science, graduation of bachelor's and master's studies on time, bachelor's programs in English. This year, RTU has improved the results in four criteria – on interdisciplinary publications, student mobility, number of postdoctoral students and attraction of foreign academic staff.
«U-Multirank is the most comprehensive rating, which evaluates a very wide range of activities of the university, and RTU has been a convincing leader in this rating in Latvia for several years in a row. Also this year, RTU has improved its positions, as we have purposefully and strategically developed interdisciplinary study programs and increased the number of postdoctoral researchers, which has also been assessed in the rating, assigning an A level rating to both of these positions. In general, RTU has shown an outstanding performance, which no Latvian university has historically had,» said Juris Iljins, RTU Administrative Director.
U-Multirank is the world's largest multidimensional rating, made to be particularly user-friendly for potential students choosing their university. Rating allows universities to be judged in specific scientific and study areas that they are stronger at. The information provided by the universities themselves, information from various international and national databases, and survey results are used to create the rating. This year, the rating includes information on 1948 higher education institutions. 21 higher education institutions from Latvia participate in the rating.
