The rating includes 35 Russian universities. The fifth place in the list was taken by MSU, 12th - Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT), 16th - National Research Nuclear University (MEPhI). The list of the 50 best universities also includes the Higher School of Economics (22nd place) and Tomsk State University (49th place). Southern Federal University is included in the group 301-350 out of 442 educational institutions represented in it.

The ratings use the same 13 performance indicators as in the ranking of world universities to evaluate educational institutions for their teaching, research, knowledge transfer, and international perspectives.
The ranking includes more than 400 universities, compared with 378 universities last year, from 42 countries on four continents. Russia also expanded its representation to 35 institutions, compared with 27 in 2018.