UNWE Occupies the First Places in the Rating System of Higher Education Institutions in Bulgaria for 2021

UNWE continues to be the most prestigious higher education institution in the professional field of Economics according to employers and lecturers in the 11th edition of the Higher Education Institutions Rating System presented by the Ministry of Education and Science.

In the professional field of Economics where study over 29,000 students the UNWE continues to be the most popular higher education institution in the country, the largest business university also ranks first in:

• Program and institutional accreditation;
• Schopus index of citations /Hirsch/;
• Documents cited at least once /Scopus and Web of Sciense/;
• Articles in scientific journals /Scopus/, reports from scientific conferences /Web of Sciense/;
• Ph.D. programmes.

The results regarding the citations are valid not only for the field of Economics but also for all professional fields.

Compared to other universities in the rating system the UNWE ranks again first in:

• Programme accreditation;
• Number of students;
• Number of active students;
• Specialties for Bachelor`s degree;
• Specialties for Master's degree.

The ranking compares 52 universities that prepare students in hundreds of specialties divided into 52 professional fields. The rating system aims to help prospective students make their choice of university and professional field.

100 are the indicators that measure various aspects of the activities of higher education institutions. The indicators are divided into 6 groups - educational process, research, learning environment, social and administrative services, prestige and realization on the labor market and regional significance. These indicators are formed from statistical data collected from various sources as well as by sociological surveys.

In the standardized ranking of the Higher Education Institutions Rating System the UNWE ranks second in the field of Law and Media and Public Communications, third in the most popular field of Economics as well as in the fields of Administration and Management and Sociology. The ranking shows an increase in the number of Bachelor's degree students.

Doctoral programmes also increase as well as the ratio of Doctoral students to undergraduates. More and more international students also enroll at the UNWE.

"The rating system covers many indicators that are difficult to be ranged or implemeted as well as possible. It is natural that there are indicators on which we are lagging behind and this year they are related to the international mobility, library funds and their usability, building stock, scholarships whose averages of more than 10 000 students give a greater deviation in the result“, commented the Rector Prof. Dr. Dimitar Dimitrov and explained that a working group was formed last year to analyze the criteria of the Rating System and develop steps to improve the resultativeness.

Economics continues to be the most popular professional field in Bulgarian universities although it has far fewer students than 5-6 years ago - the candidate economists in our country are currently 29,321 people. In addition, training in Economics is offered by 26 universities in our country even in ones whose profile has nothing in common with Economics. It obviously leads to imbalances, according to Georgy Stoychev from the Open Society Institute, Head of the team worked on the rating ranking.