At the end of July, Webometrics published its latest rankings of the top world universities: for the third half-year in a row, three leading Lithuanian universities retained their former positions. Vilnius University (VU) is in the first position; Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (VGTU) is in the second position and Vytautas Magnus University (VMU) – in the third position. They performed rankings taking into account the openness, visibility and impact of the Website.

 

In the category of the universities of the Central and Eastern Europe, only two Lithuanian universities entered the top seventy: VU reached the twenty-fifth and VGTU – the sixty-fourth position. Further, VDU reached one-hundred-sixteenth position; Mykolas Romeris University (MRU) reached one- hundred-fifty-first position, followed by Klaipeda University (KU) in the one-hundred-fifty-eighth position.

 

According to Prof. Dr. Alfonsas Daniūnas, the Rector of VGTU, such good results are reflecting the university‘s desire to be active and visible in the world: "Every University should ensure the accessibility of the information about their activities and scientific knowledge as well as scientists innovations, for a much wider audience. The fact that for the third time the same universities are the leaders shows the continuous efforts, rather than one-off success of the universities."

 

The ranking system provides rating for almost twelve thousand universities worldwide. The leading three universities of the United States of America – Harvard University in the first position, Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the second position and Stanford University in the third position – are retaining their leading rankings in the category of the world universities, according to the data from Webometrics. Among all rated universities, VU is 670th, VGTU is 1313rd, VDU is 1938th, MRU is 2365th, and KU is 2460th.

 

They perform ranking of the universities every half of a year, based on the university Web activities and visibility. The rating takes into account the number of external in-links, receiving the university Web, the number of university Web pages, found in the search systems, the number of scientists’ publications in the open access scientific databases and influential scientific magazines as well as their quotation frequency.

 

The rating is published by the Cybermetrics Laboratory, established by the Spanish National Research Council. The aim of the ranking is to improve the presence of the academic and research institutions on the Web and to promote the open access publication of scientific results.