The European University Association (EUA) presents a set of recommendations on sustaining Ukrainian universities and enabling them to continue their research and teaching activities. The Russian Federation's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 impelled an immediate display of solidarity and support from higher education and research institutions,…

This study seeks to explore the incentive factors that serve to instigate university engagement in the third-mission agenda based on evidence drawn from the Russian system of higher education. We pay special attention to how the split of natural and externally induced drivers of the third mission has changed from the Soviet era and up until the…

This mixed-methods ethnographic case study examines the socio-historical origins and current lived experiences of students at one Russian university to understand the role of a university education as an environmental factor in the development of a civic consciousness. Findings suggest that the institution has attempted to introduce liberal civic…

How and why did Russian education go from the enthusiastic liberalization in the early 1990s to the restoration of a Soviet-style system in the new century? Attempting to answer this question, the authors reassess and advance a theoretical model that they initially proposed fifteen years ago. While most research on education in transitional…

Drawing on theoretical discussions on identity construction, the article studies the interrelation between academic mobility and the creation of a common (supranational) identity in the post-Soviet space, which is fragmented by cooperation projects and state-level educational policies. Based on the concept of educational regionalism, the article…

The legacy of totalitarianism thwarts discourse and practice of academic freedom in post-Soviet universities. For legacy-holders, "academic freedom" causes disorientation, irresponsibility, demoralization and inequity. They see more threats than benefits from empowering decision-makers who are non-compliant with local bureaucracy. For…

Over the past nearly 30 years, Russian universities have been buffeted by external forces necessitating attempts to adjust to a fast-changing academic climate, both globally and regionally. Based on informally structured interviews of university faculty of different age groups and ranks, academic fields and regions of the country conducted between…

This study addresses the lack of studies of diversity in post-Soviet higher education systems. It aims to examine institutional diversity in two post-Soviet countries as the result of higher state and market forces in the context of high-participation systems of higher education. The 'enrollment economy' has become the most powerful signal for…

In the article the avatar-based learning and teaching (A-BL&T) as a concept of control and managing knowledge in modern socio-economic conditions is proposed to use for assessment a university's economic efficiency. It is shown that all elements, methods and techniques (tools) do not operate in isolation, but rather are interrelated,…

The authors discuss the underpinnings of structural analysis in the higher education system. The article justifies why it focuses on specific labor market segments and the nature of the university's basic product as grounds for proposing a typology and groups of institutions. A Soviet "master plan" is reconstructed on the basis of the…

This paper studies the dynamics of key characteristics of the academic profession in Russia based on the analysis of university faculty in the two largest cities in Russia--Moscow and St. Petersburg. We use data on Russian university faculty from two large-scale comparative studies of the academic profession ("The Carnegie Study" carried…

This article describes a modernization project undertaken by a nationally accredited Russian university located in Omsk, Siberia, and aimed at developing a new international business school. A unique feature of the project is that it was successfully implemented in a former Soviet-era closed city. Until 1991, the university hadn't had any…

Higher education is fundamental to both national and global contemporary knowledge economies. It is also a driver for social change (see for example) which crucially includes making higher education available and relevant to a wider section of society and improving the mobility and relevance of its graduates in the workplace. New tools are…

The transition from a planned centralist economy to a market economy over the last decade of the 20th century has presented Russian universities with many profound challenges. These challenges require universities to review and consider their organisational culture and deserve careful study. This paper describes the changes that have taken place…

History and legal status of academic freedom and institutional autonomy in Russian universities is traced from the eighteenth century. Conditions under which the universities currently function are described, recent legislation is reviewed, and the situation of St. Petersburg State University is specifically addressed. It is concluded that while…