The Tchaikovsky National Music Academy of Ukraine has topped the nationwide ranking of artistic higher education institutions presented by the Institute of Sociological Research of the Kyiv National Economic University named after V. Hetman and the research company Active Group.

According to Oleksandr Poznyi, the coordinator of the project to create the rating, director of the Active Group research company, artistic higher education institutions are a very complex and important social institution that requires a specific methodology for studying.

“That's why we combine the efforts of researchers, scholars and the best practices of the international community to improve our ranking of artistic higher education institutions,” he said at a press conference at Interfax-Ukraine on Tuesday.

Pozniy emphasized that the main mission of the rating is to evaluate artistic institutions, as the existing ratings are designed for classical universities and do not take into account the unique aspects of art education and the specifics of evaluating art institutions. This, in turn, affects the objectivity and significance of these rankings in the context of art education, resulting in the underrepresentation of artistic institutions in the rankings.

“This is an important step in creating a transparent and objective system for evaluating artistic educational institutions, which allows us to adequately assess their contribution to the cultural development of the country. The ranking is designed to reflect the uniqueness of each artistic institution. We have applied comprehensive criteria that include teaching, research, international activity and financial stability,” said Yulia Gorbova, Director of the Institute of Sociological Research at the Kyiv National Economic University named after V. Hetman.

According to her, the methodology of this year's ranking was improved as part of the joint research work of Active Group, the Institute of Higher Education and the Institute of Sociological Research of the Kyiv National Economic University named after V. Hetman. The study searched, systematized, and analyzed international and local general and subject (industry) rankings, with a special focus on the rankings of art education institutions and/or educational programs.

Art higher education institutions were analyzed by 45 parameters grouped into six blocks: “Teaching and Learning”, “Science and Research”, “Impact of Higher Education Institutions on Society Development”, “Internationalization”, “Institutional Reputation”, and “Financial Sustainability”. The share of each group of indicators and the weight of each individual criterion was determined based on the analysis of international experience and adjusted based on the results of an expert survey of representatives of the field of art education.

The authors of the ranking also used multi-criteria approaches to evaluating the activities of higher education institutions based on the processing of data that can be obtained from open sources and whose validity can be verified.

The sources of data for the ranking of artistic HEIs were: EDEBO, NAQA, Rector's Report, Report on Scientific Activities, Estimates, Financial Statements of HEIs, HEI Website, Scopus, Web of Science, OpenAlex, Ukrainian National H-index Ranking, Google Scholar, Transparent Ranking, QS, UniRank, services for measuring brand reputation on the Internet and social networks.

As a result, the all-Ukrainian ranking of art universities for the 2023-2024 academic year was as follows:

	Place in the ranking	Result
Tchaikovsky National Music Academy of Ukraine	1	68,6
Kharkiv State Academy of Design and Arts	2	47,7
Kharkiv State Academy of Culture	3	43,8
Lviv National Academy of Arts	4	43,5
National Academy of Fine Arts and Architecture	5	41,7
Kharkiv National University of Arts named after I.P. Kotlyarevsky	6	39,6
Kyiv National University of Theater, Cinema and Television named after I.K. Karpenko-Kary	7	38
A.V. Nezhdanova Odesa National Music Academy	8	32,2
Mykola Lysenko Lviv National Music Academy	9	32,1
Mykhailo Boichuk Kyiv State Academy of Decorative and Applied Arts and Design	10	27,2
National Academy of Management Personnel of Culture and Arts	11	27,1
Transcarpathian Academy of Arts	12	14,5
Luhansk State Academy of Culture and Arts	13	12,3

The researchers plan to continue this assessment of artistic institutions in order to track the dynamics of the development of Ukrainian art education institutions. The project team invites everyone to join the work on the development of the ranking, in particular, to improve the criteria for evaluating art institutions.