In today’s competitive global education market, world university rankings deeply infl uence the recruitment of students worldwide. Lomonosov Moscow State University and Saint Petersburg State University, the most important universities in Russia, have made a great leap in World University Rankings according to Times Higher Education (rankings released in 2015). This fact shows that Russian universities have made great progress in their efforts to improve the quality of research and teaching. However, Russian higher education still needs to fi nd a solution for attracting academics and for speeding up internationalization.