Siberia's top university rose 19 places in the latest QS rankings

While Russia has 18 universities in the list of the best in the world, it has none in top 100. The highest is Lomonosov Moscow State University at 120th place in the QS World University Rankings, down four from 2012. 

Second is St Petersburg State University in 240th place, up 13 notches from last year's league table, while third is Bauman Moscow State Technical University at place number 334, up 18 on last year.

Novosibirsk State University - the highest in Siberia - is in 352nd place, which sees it overtake the prestigious Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO-University), having made the biggest improvement of any of the top five in Russia in the last year. It now occupies fourth place in the country. 

Siberia's leading university has risen 19 places while MGIMO has slipped 21 places. The new list shows both Tomsk Polytechnic University and Tomsk State University ranked between places 551 and 600. This is a significant improvement for Tomsk Polytechnic University which in 2012 was in the bracket 600+.

The new list shows that the Far Eastern Federal University has dipped and is now in position number 701+, having been in the 600+ bracket last year.

Novosibirsk's improvement sets the university in the right direction to achieve an ambitious target set last year by rector Mikhail Fedoruk. He wants to see the university in the world's top 90 by 2020. 

A year ago, he said:  'We are not at all a local university. I have said it before and repeat it now: Novosibirsk is the best place for those keen on science.

'If you wish to go into business or run the State, do go to Moscow. But if you want to deal with science, there is no better place in Russia than Novosibirsk, and there are not many such places in this world.'

There are different ways of judging universities on international league tables and Fedoruk said in September 2012 he was looking for 'very ambitious' improvements in all of them. 

'According to our very optimistic forecast by 2020 we will be in the 89th place in 'The Times' ranking. But we have to work hard to achieve it.

'Together with the Siberian branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk University will provide at least 10,000 scientific articles that will be quoted in other sources. At the moment we have  3,000 such articles, and 30% of them are on physics'.