Precisely for this reason, as they emphasized, to understand the position of an institution, it is not enough to look only at its absolute place on the list, but also at the category in which it is located, as well as the universities with which it can realistically be compared.
"In order to make a basic fair comparison between universities, it is necessary to take into account at least several factors: the total budget of the institution, the number of research and teaching staff, the number of students, as well as the broader economic environment within which the university operates. When these parameters are ignored, and institutions from completely different academic and economic frameworks are compared only based on their ordinal number in a ranking list, simplified and most often erroneous conclusions are drawn. For small universities, especially when the aforementioned comparison categories are taken into account, even relatively small changes in the ranking methodology can have a disproportionately large impact on their position on any list," said the UCG.
The Times Higher Education (THE) ranking is one, as they say, of many academic rankings and includes thousands of universities around the world.
"The position of the University of Montenegro in the 1501+ group on the THE list for 2026 places it in the same group as numerous European universities with much larger budgets, which are located within significantly stronger economic and academic systems," the UCG said.
At the same time, as they say, it is important to emphasize that the University of Montenegro is also included in a special Times Higher Education list of the best universities in Europe, which includes several hundred institutions from across the continent.
"Although UCG is located in the lower part of the table, its inclusion on this list means that it is recognized as part of the corps of leading European universities according to the criteria used by THE, including the quality of teaching, scientific production, citations and international cooperation," the UCG stated.
A comparison of universities in the same THE group on the list (1501+) shows, as they point out, that the University of Montenegro, viewed through its budget, number of research and teaching staff, and size of the institution, is a kind of exception in that category.
"The University of Montenegro operates with a budget of around 40.5 million euros and around 15,000 students, while many universities in the same category have significantly larger resources. The University of Zagreb, for example, has a budget of over 300 million, while the University of Warsaw has as much as 550 million euros. If parameters describing the economic strength of the countries in which these universities operate were added to this, the picture of how exceptional the University of Montenegro is in such a society would be even more pronounced," the statement states.
It is especially important, say the University of Montenegro, to keep in mind the time dynamics of academic results.
"Scientific production, citations, and international cooperation develop in time cycles that last several years, which is why the rankings largely reflect the results of previous periods, rather than current institutional circumstances," the University of Montenegro pointed out.
For universities from small countries, such as the University of Montenegro, the key challenge, as they point out, is the continuous strengthening of scientific production, research capacities, and international cooperation.
"It is precisely this process of institutional development, measured over years and through measurable scientific indicators, that represents the most reliable indicator of academic progress," they concluded.
