New development trends in Russian higher education

• In Event: Poster session III
  In Poster Session: Poster session 3

Proposal

Throughout the last decades the Russian system of higher education has experienced significant reforms that brought certain changes to its directions and structure. One of the most important recent trends in the universities’ development strategies has been ensuring that Russian higher education institutions become more competitive and better internationally recognized in the global higher education sector. With this challenge in mind, universities started seeking more effective strategies that would help them to become better integrated in the global academic community. Internationalization has become an important component of the current transformation of the Russian universities; many of them see it as an essential component of their institutional development. Internationalization activities may include but are not limited to: publishing in the leading international journals and presenting at research conferences worldwide, internationalizing curriculum, increasing student inward and outward mobility, inviting faculty members holding degrees from distinguished international universities, offering foreign language instruction and dual-degree programs, establishing inter-institutional collaborations with foreign higher education institutions, and others. Each particular institution finds its own path in its internationalizing activities. On the national level, 5-100 Russian Academic Excellence Project became one of the most important initiatives. It is a governmental program according to which by 2020 the country will have a group of leading universities with a strong international academic reputation, which meets global development trends and standards.

The goals of this research are: to explore the new trends in higher education policy on both national and institutional levels, to understand the new strategies that universities are implementing to ensure their strong development, to see what specific institutional policies they are implementing, and what kind of challenges they are facing throughout this process. Globalization and an increased pace of economic and technological development makes change an inevitable feature of higher education institutions all over the world. Therefore, globalization theory is one of the theoretical orientations that I rely on in this research. Furthermore, since this research deals directly with organizations (higher education institutions) and how they develop in the given context, another theory that I employ is organization development theory.

The poster will focus on some findings of this research that are based on the case studies of Russian universities that I conducted during multiple field research trips. The information will be drawn from the literature review, policy document analysis and interviews with faculty and university officials who provided their views on the internationalization activities and the universities’ new development strategies. The poster will describe the recent trends in the Russian higher education as well as the internationalization efforts that aim to help the universities acquire stronger academic reputation and ensure sustainable institutional development given the global university competition challenges.

Currently, ensuring the solid development of the higher education sector and introducing new development strategies present some of the central issues of international higher education. This research offers a Russian perspective on the internationalization of higher education as well as on other current strategies that aim to bring universities to the higher international academic standards. It also adds to the understanding of how specific context shapes this process and defines its outcomes. The research findings can potentially inform higher education institutions in their educational reforms.

Author

• Veronika Rozhenkova, UCLA, World Policy Analysis Center