Becoming the World Elite

13:33, December 7, 2012

Experts gathered at UrFU and discussed how to increase competitiveness of Russian universities

The project session devoted to improving competitiveness of the Russian higher education has just finished in Ekaterinburg. Representatives of 16 Russian universities put their heads together and discussed how the country’s educational institutions can enter international academic rankings. The meeting of the leading Russian and international experts in the sphere of education was organized by Ural Federal University – the renowned centre for innovations in higher education  - together with the Ministry of Education, Association of Leading Russian Universities and the Higher School of Economics.

According to the Deputy Minister of Education Alexander Povalko, the guidelines put forward at UrFU will be considered by the Ministry. They may form the basis for the new programme of state support for educational institutions. After President Putin has set the task for at least five of the country’s universities to enter the top 100 of the world rankings by 2020, this seems to be particularly important.

The necessity of the quality changes in Russian education is also caused by global tendencies. For instance, according to the OECD’s statistics of 2012, within eight years the popularity of the USA as a country to study in has dropped from 26% to 19%.

One of the targets pursued by UrFU is to encourage the University’s leading scientific schools to gain the high status of international research centres. UrFU Rector Viktor Koksharov spoke about it at the end of the project session’s first day. At present there is a roadmap developed at the University which describes the real measures which would allow UrFU to enter top-200 and then, by 2020, top-100. In 2000 there were 52,000 foreign students studying at Chinese universities, in 2009 – 240,000, including students from Russia. In 2011 our universities “lost” 68,626 students who went to study abroad. That is why it is crucial not only to improve the reputation of Russian universities, but also to increase their international recognition, which means that it is necessary to learn how to manage these processes paying special attention to internationalization and openness to new contacts.

On the second day of the session, representatives of the leading Russian universities, after holding discussions in expert groups, shared their experience of the most successful academic practices. As it turned out, all universities moving up in the global ratings use similar algorithms and methods. The only thing that differs is the priorities the universities attach to this or that particular sphere. For some their strongest point is internationalization (they maintain steady growth of foreign professors and students), consequently, they develop their own programmes in foreign languages. Some are more concerned with their academic reputation – they are more attractive for distinguished foreign scholars from Russia and abroad. Lots of work is carried out to improve the citation index: the higher this index is, the more respected the scholar is (whose works are cited), but also the university where he is working. Some universities have introduced incentive payments for the articles in the most-cited publications. For instance, at UrFU a scholar can get 40,000 roubles for each publication.

 It should be remembered that occupying high positions in world rankings isn’t a goal in itself but the indicator of the university’s quality. Rankings are necessary to let others know about the university, they are essential for moving forward. However, moving forward without being integrated into the life of your local community doesn’t make any sense. At the same time it is important to promote not your “local colour” but to follow the global trends. The session at UrFU  resulted in providing the Ministry of Education with guidelines for changing the current situation in higher education.  

UrFU leaders particularly appreciated the fact that the project session involved distinguished international experts – the Head of the Division, QS Intelligence Unit, Ben Sowter, the Vice-President of the International Observatory  on Academic Ranking and Excellence (IREG) Waldemar Sivinski, QS Central and Eastern European Regional Marketing Director Zoya Zaitseva and the First Vice-Rector of the Kazakh National University n.a. Al-Farabi Mukhambetkali Burkitbaev.