times higher education russia

Rankings: The 68 best universities in Russia for 2024/2025

Top ranked universities in Russia

Explained: How do the university rankings work?

The QS World University Rankings are among the most important, most-referenced rankings. The QS ranking relies heavily on its academic survey, asking thousands of academics worldwide about the reputation of universities.

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings (or the THE Rankings for short) compile a wide range of statistics. Equal weight is put on teaching quality, research excellence, and research impact through citations (meaning how often a university’s research is referenced elsewhere).

The Academic Ranking of World Universities by Shanghai Jiao Tong University (often just Shanghai Ranking , or ARWU ) focuses on research output and quality, for example measured by the number of published and cited scientific papers and the number of staff or alumni winning the Nobel Prize or Fields Medal.

Study in Russia

Plenty of exciting study options await international students in the largest country on earth: Russia offers high-quality education at world-renowned institutions, and is rapidly internationalising its university sector. Dozens of Russian universities offer a variety of study programmes in English.

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• Studying abroad in Russia: Basic information for international students
• Study programmes in Russia
• Visit the website of the QS World University Rankings
• Visit the website of the Times Higher Education World University Rankings
• Visit the website of the Shanghai Jiao Tong Academic Ranking of World Universities

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QS World University Rankings 2021

Discover the world’s top universities. Explore the QS World University Rankings® 2021 .

Out now!  QS World University Rankings 2024 .

This year’s QS World University Rankings reveals the top 1,000 universities from around the world, covering 80 different locations. There are 47 new entrants in this year’s top 1,000 while over 5,500 universities were evaluated and considered for inclusion. For more information on this process, consult our methodology . While the Massachusetts Institute for Technology (MIT) continues its record-breaking streak at number one - the ninth year in a row it’s achieved this feat - the big story this year is the impressive gains made by Asian universities. 26 institutions from the continent now feature in the global top 100, more than ever before. This year’s rankings are launched at a challenging time for the whole world, with COVID-19 impacting universities and students alike. For the latest information on COVID-19 for students, please visit our dedicated COVID-19 page . We are also contacting universities to learn more about how the pandemic is impacting applications, and this information can be found on our COVID-19 admissions page .Want to share your thoughts on this year’s ranking? Has this helped you make your mind up about where to apply? Tweet us @TopUnis or use the #QSWUR hashtag and let us know!

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Published on: 10 June 2020

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Universities in Russia - Rankings & Reviews -

For business studies see our separate ranking of business schools in Russia

• 12 Jul, 2024: Webometrics published most recent results of Webometrics Ranking Web of Universities . Includes 220 universities from Russia.
• 03 Jul, 2024: Publication of CWTS Leiden Ranking . Moscow State University M. V. Lomonosov with highest ranking among universities in Russia ranked #229.
• 24 Jun, 2024: Latest US News: Best Global Universities from Us News. 24 universities from Russia appear in this ranking.
• 15 Jun, 2024: Latest Nature Index: Research Leaders Academic Sector from Nature Index. 72 universities from Russia appear in this ranking.

Rankings of universities in Russia 2024

Moscow State University M. V. Lomonosov

• University rankings - Moscow State University M. V. Lomonosov

Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology

• University rankings - Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology

National Research University Higher School of Economics

• University rankings - National Research University Higher School of Economics

in Business, Computer Science, Medicine, Law, Education, Health... Study at your own pace , conveniently from home .

Tomsk State University

• University rankings - Tomsk State University

Peter the Great St.Petersburg Polytechnic University

• University rankings - Peter the Great St.Petersburg Polytechnic University

National Research Nuclear University MEPI

• University rankings - National Research Nuclear University MEPI

Peoples' Friendship University of Russia

• University rankings - Peoples' Friendship University of Russia

Novosibirsk State University

• University rankings - Novosibirsk State University

Kazan Federal University

• University rankings - Kazan Federal University

ITMO University

• University rankings - ITMO University

Bauman Moscow State Technical University

• University rankings - Bauman Moscow State Technical University

Tomsk Polytechnic University

• University rankings - Tomsk Polytechnic University

Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University

• University rankings - Sechenov First Moscow State Medical University

Ural Federal University

• University rankings - Ural Federal University

National University of Science and Technology "MISIS"

• University rankings - National University of Science and Technology "MISIS"

South Ural State University

• University rankings - South Ural State University

St. Petersburg State University

• University rankings - St. Petersburg State University

Saint-Petersburg Mining University

• University rankings - Saint-Petersburg Mining University

Far Eastern Federal University

• University rankings - Far Eastern Federal University

Siberian Federal University

• University rankings - Siberian Federal University

Plekhanov Russian University of Economics

• University rankings - Plekhanov Russian University of Economics

Southern Federal University

• University rankings - Southern Federal University

Finance Academy under the Government of the Russian Federation

• University rankings - Finance Academy under the Government of the Russian Federation

Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University

• University rankings - Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University

Lobachevsky State University of Nizhni Novgorod

• University rankings - Lobachevsky State University of Nizhni Novgorod

Altai State University

• University rankings - Altai State University

Saint Petersburg State Electrotechnical University

• University rankings - Saint Petersburg State Electrotechnical University

Chernyshevsky Saratov State University

• University rankings - Chernyshevsky Saratov State University

Don State Technical University

• University rankings - Don State Technical University

Russian National Research Medical University

• University rankings - Russian National Research Medical University

Samara State University

• University rankings - Samara State University

Skolkovo Institute of Science & Technology

• University rankings - Skolkovo Institute of Science & Technology

Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology of Russia

• University rankings - Mendeleev University of Chemical Technology of Russia

National Research University Moscow Power Engineering Institute

• University rankings - National Research University Moscow Power Engineering Institute

Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration

• University rankings - Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration

MGIMO University

• University rankings - MGIMO University

Belgorod State University

• University rankings - Belgorod State University

Moscow Aviation Institute (National Research University)

• University rankings - Moscow Aviation Institute (National Research University)

Novosibirsk State Technical University

• University rankings - Novosibirsk State Technical University

Voronezh State University

• University rankings - Voronezh State University

Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia

• University rankings - Herzen State Pedagogical University of Russia

Perm State University

• University rankings - Perm State University

Kazan National Research Technological University

• University rankings - Kazan National Research Technological University

Volgograd State University

• University rankings - Volgograd State University

Irkutsk State University

• University rankings - Irkutsk State University

National Research Irkutsk State Technical University

• University rankings - National Research Irkutsk State Technical University

Tomsk State University of Control Systems and Radioelectronics

• University rankings - Tomsk State University of Control Systems and Radioelectronics

Moscow Institute of Electronic Technology

• University rankings - Moscow Institute of Electronic Technology

Pavlov First Saint Petersburg State Medical University

• University rankings - Pavlov First Saint Petersburg State Medical University

Kemerovo State University

• University rankings - Kemerovo State University

Highest subject rankings of universities in Russia

Russia key facts for international students.

251 out of 381 Universities in Russia Ranked in at least one ranking

25 Different Rankings list Universities in Russia (18 institution and 7 subject rankings)

16 Global Rankings rank Universities in Russia Among TOP 200

Time: GMT +3 — GTM +12

Telephone country code: +7

• Orthodox  42%
• Islam  7%
• Christian Denominations  5%
• Paganism  1%
• Atheist, agnostic and unclassified  38%
• Other religions: Buddhism, Hinduism  7%
• Largest cities in Russia:
• 1. Moscow: 10,400,000
• 2. St Petersburg: 5,000,000
• 3. Novosibirsk: 1,400,000
• 4. Yekaterinburg: 1,350,000
• 5. Nizhny Novgorod: 1,300,000

Largest international airport in Russia:

Sheremetyevo International Airport (SVO): 40.093.000 Passengers/Year; 6 Terminals; 27 km. from Moscow city center

Map with location of universities in Russia

Useful related pages

What is the best ranked university in Russia?

What university in russia is listed in most university rankings, what university in russia is best ranked for studying arts visual & performing, what university in russia is best ranked for studying languages & literature, what university in russia is best ranked for studying natural sciences, what university in russia is best ranked for studying mathematics, what university in russia is best ranked for studying business, what university in russia is best ranked for studying social studies & humanities, what university in russia is best ranked for studying engineering, what university in russia is best ranked for studying education, what university in russia is best ranked for studying law, what university in russia is best ranked for studying computer science, what university in russia is best ranked for studying medicine & health, what university in russia is best ranked for studying agriculture, ranking publishers, british quacquarelli symonds, uk, qs world university rankings  (published: 04 june, 2024).

Academic Reputation 40% Employer Reputation 10% Faculty/Student Ratio 20% Citations per faculty 20% International Faculty Ratio 5% International Student Ratio 5%

view methodology

QS Employability Rankings  (Published: 23 September, 2021)

Employer reputation 30% Alumni outcomes 25% Partnerships with Employers per Faculty 25% Employer/Student Connections 10% Graduate employment rate 10%

QS 50 under 50  (Published: 24 June, 2020)

Based on the QS World University rankings methodology, the top 50 universities that are under 50 years old.

QS University Rankings BRICS  (Published: 06 May, 2019)

Academic reputation 30% Employer reputation 20% Faculty/student ratio 20% Staff with a PhD 10% Papers per faculty 10%

QS University Rankings: EECA Emerging Europe & Central Asia  (Published: 15 December, 2021)

Academic reputation 30% Employer reputation 20% Faculty/student ratio 10% Papers per faculty 10% International research network 10%

QS World University Rankings: Sustainability  (Published: 05 December, 2023)

Cwur center for world university rankings, cwur center for world university rankings  (published: 13 may, 2024).

Research Performance: 40%

• Research Output: 10%
• High-Quality Publications: 10%
• Influence: 10%
• Citations: 10%

Quality of Education: 25%

Alumni Employment: 25%

Quality of Faculty: 10%

Centre for Science and Technology Studies, Leiden University, Netherlands

Cwts leiden ranking  (published: 03 july, 2024).

Scientific Impact Number of Publications Collaboration Open Access Gender Diversity

NTU ranking

Ntu performance ranking of scientific papers  (published: 11 july, 2023).

Research Productivity: 25%

• # Articles last 11 years: 10%
• # Articles current year: 15%

Research Impact: 35%

• # Citations last 11 years: 15%
• # Citations last 2 years: 10%
• Average # citations last 11 years: 10%

Research Excellence: 40%

• H-index last 2 years: 10%
• # Highly cited papers last 11 years: 15%
• # Articles current year in high-impact journals: 15%

Nature Index

Nature index: research leaders academic sector  (published: 15 june, 2024).

Article count (AC) Fractional count (FC) Weighted fractional count (WFC)

Nature Index - Young Universities  (Published: 08 December, 2021)

Rur ranking agency (moscow, russia), rur academic rankings  (published: 25 may, 2023).

Normalized citation impact (Citations of research publications from all university authors compared with world averages) 20% Citation per papers 20% Papers per academic and research staff 20% International research reputation 20% Share of research publications written in international co-authorship 20%

RUR Reputation Ranking  (Published: 25 May, 2023)

Teaching Reputation 50% Research Reputation 50%

RUR World University Rankings  (Published: 30 May, 2024)

Teaching: 40%

• Ratio Faculty/Student: 8%
• Ratio Faculty/Bachelor Degrees Awarded: 8%
• Ratio Faculty/Doctoral Degrees Awarded: 8%
• Ratio Doctoral Degrees Awarded/Bachelor Degrees Awarded: 8%
• World Teaching Reputation: 8%

Research: 40%

• Citations per Academic/Research Staff: 8%
• Doctoral Degrees per Accepted PhD: 8%
• Normalized Citation Impact: 8%
• Papers per Academic/Research Staff: 8%
• World Research Reputation: 8%

International Diversity: 10%

• International Faculty: 2%
• International Students: 2%
• International Co-Authored Papers: 2%
• Reputation Outside Geographical Region: 2%
• International Level: 2%

Financial Sustainability: 10%

• Institutional Income per Faculty: 2%
• Institutional Income per Student: 2%
• Papers per Research Income: 2%
• Research Income per Academic/Research Staff: 2%
• Research Income per Institutional Income: 2%

Scimago Institutions

Scimago institutions rankings  (published: 06 march, 2024).

Research 50% Innovation 30% Societal 20%

ShanghaiRanking Consultancy

Arwu academic ranking of world universities - shanghairanking  (published: 15 august, 2023).

Quality of Education 10%

• Alumni winning Nobel Prizes/Field Medals 10%

Quality of Faculty 40%

• Staff winning Nobel Prizes/Field Medals 20%
• Highly Cited Researchers 20%

Research Output 40%

• Papers published in Nature and Science 20%
• Papers indexed in Science Citation Index-Expanded & Social Science Citation Index 20%

Per Capita Performance 10%

THE Times Higher Education, UK

The world university rankings  (published: 27 september, 2023).

30% Teaching (the Learning Environment)

• Reputation survey: 15%
• Staff-to-student ratio: 4.5%
• Doctorate-to-bachelor’s ratio: 2.25%
• Doctorates-awarded-to-academic-staff ratio: 6%
• Institutional income: 2.25%

30% Research (Volume, Income and Reputation)

• Reputation survey: 18%
• Research income: 6%
• Research productivity: 6%

30% Citations (Research Influence)

7.5% International Outlook (Staff, Students and Research)

• Proportion of international students: 2.5%
• Proportion of international staff: 2.5%
• International collaboration: 2.5%

2.5% Industry Income (Knowledge Transfer)"

THE World Reputation Rankings  (Published: 27 July, 2023)

Research Reputation 66,6% Teaching Reputation 33,3%

THE Emerging Economies University Ranking - Times Higher Education  (Published: 19 October, 2021)

Teaching 30% Research (volume, income and reputation) 30% Citations 20% International outlook (staff, students, research) 10% Industry income (knowledge transfer) 10%

THE Young University Rankings  (Published: 14 May, 2024)

Teaching 30% Research (volume, income and reputation) 30% Citations 30% International outlook (staff, students, research) 7.5% Industry income (knowledge transfer) 2.5%

THE China Subject Ratings Overall  (Published: 27 March, 2024)

The world university impact rankings - overall  (published: 12 june, 2024), urap world ranking - university ranking by academic performance  (published: 19 december, 2023), us news: best global universities  (published: 24 june, 2024), webometrics, webometrics ranking web of universities  (published: 12 july, 2024).

Visibility 50% Excellence 35% Transparency 10% Presence 5%

• Traditional-Age

QS Ranks Russian Universities, Contrary to Original Plan

By  Scott Jaschik

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If you read the new QS rankings of universities worldwide, you will find Lomonosov Moscow State University ranked No. 75, and Bauman Moscow State Technical University ranked No. 230. In the portion of the rankings where QS lumps together in bands of 50, the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics and Sechenov University are both ranked between 651 and 700. The Saint Petersburg Electrotechnical University is 751 to 800.

The rankings would appear to violate what Nunzio Quacquarelli, QS’s founder and CEO, said on March 7 : “At this time, we will redact Russian and Belarussian entries in new QS university rankings and are ceasing promoting Russian universities or Russia as a study destination. We are ceasing any new customer engagement in Russia and pausing active engagement with current Russian customers.”

Quacquarelli also said, “At QS, we are united in outrage at the war Russia is waging against the Ukrainian people. We believe in the power of international education to promote understanding and collaboration, yet we have seen images of university campuses indiscriminately attacked, and our partners, colleagues and friends displaced in this humanitarian catastrophe.”

That statement was removed from the QS website and is available only, as above, through the Wayback Machine, an archive of old internet pages.

On April 4, QS posted a new version of the statement, which still had much of the same language but no longer included the statement on redacting Russian universities.

Despite QS’s more recent statement, some were surprised to see QS ranking the Russian universities.

Another international ranker of universities, Times Higher Education , issued this statement in March and has abided by it: “Our current rankings reflect global higher education as it was during the previous data collection period, however we will take steps to ensure that Russian universities are given less prominence in the rankings, and that their university profiles are not available. Our rankings are based on data, and as such offer an independent view of the world as it is, both the good and the bad. We would expect Russian universities’ performance to be impacted negatively by the actions of the Russian government. As such, we will allow the rankings to do what they are designed to do, and show the world the impact of those decisions.

“This, we feel, is the appropriate way to show that actions have consequences. We will be ending all business development activity in Russia. This means that we will not be seeking out or taking on any new commercial activity with Russia until further notice. As part of this, we will be taking steps to ensure that Russian universities are not using branding or other promotional opportunities offered by Times Higher Education until further notice.”

(In January, Times Higher Education purchased Inside Higher Ed , but Inside Higher Ed has maintained editorial independence.)

Simona Bizzozero, a spokeswoman for QS, said via email, “At the outbreak of the conflict QS suspended all commercial activities in Russia and that remains in place at this time. We refrain from promoting Russian institutions, their outcomes nor promote Russia as a study destination. As our mission is to empower people to fulfill their potential. Former international students of affected institutions may rely on our results to validate their credentials to access future opportunities. As such, we continue to list Russian and Belarussian institutions in our rankings so that such international students are not adversely affected.”

She acknowledged that QS had pledged to redact Russian universities. “At that point in time, we hadn’t fully considered the impact on former international students, who are at the heart of our mission,” she said.

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Russia: The Institutional Landscape of Russian Higher Education

• Open Access
• First Online: 25 April 2018

Cite this chapter

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• Daria Platonova 8 &
• Dmitry Semyonov 8  

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in Global Higher Education ((PSGHE))

10k Accesses

21 Citations

In this chapter we explore the higher education institutional landscape taking the case of the largest post-Soviet higher education system: Russia. In the Post-Soviet period, Russian higher education has tremendously expanded. The dramatic growth of the number of students and institutions has been facilitated by the introduction of tuition fees in public and a new private sector. The shifts in social and economic demand for professional fields affected the disciplinary and organisational structure of higher educational institutions.

The external forces (economic, political, social conditions) and higher education policy have been changing during the last decades. In the first part of the transitional period, the state provided limited regulation of the higher education system. In the 2000s, it has returned to its role of the main agent of change of the higher education system design. The diversity of institutional types that evolved in Russian higher education illustrate the consequences of massification and marketisation, such as new “broad access” segments and institutional programme drift. Also, the governmental role in shaping institutional diversity can be seen through attempts to increase vertical diversity (excellence initiatives), on the one hand, and to restrain it by closing down bottom-tier institutions, on the other.

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Introduction.

In this chapter we explore changes in the higher education institutional landscape, analysing the case of the largest post-Soviet higher education system. In the post-Soviet period, Russian higher education (HE) has expanded tremendously. Dramatic growth in the number of students and institutions has been facilitated by the introduction of additional tuition-paying tracks in the public as well as the new private higher education sector. Shifts in social and economic demand for professional fields have affected the disciplinary and organisational structure of higher educational institutions (HEIs).

External forces (economic, political and social conditions) and higher education policy have been changing during the last decades. In the first part of the transitional period, the state provided limited regulation for the higher education system, but in the 2000s it has regained its role as the main agent of change in the design of the higher education system. The variety of institutional types that have evolved in Russian higher education illustrates the consequences of massification and marketisation, such as a new “demand-absorbing” segment of the higher education system and institutional programme drift. Also, the governmental role in shaping the landscape has been reflected in attempts to increase vertical diversity (e.g. the excellence initiative) on the one hand, and to restrain it by closing down lower-tier institutions on the other.

The first part of the chapter presents a brief description of the HE landscape by the time of independence as the starting point of post-Soviet transformations. In the second part, we will discuss the key socioeconomic changes and major trends in higher education including massification, privatisation of costs and changes in the subject mix at HEIs. The key HE policy changes that affected the institutional landscape since independence are discussed in the next part. In the final part we present the results of an analysis of the recent HE landscape.

The Higher Education Landscape in Soviet Russia

In the last decades of the USSR, Russian higher education played a major role in the whole Soviet “machinery”. The Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR) was a part of the Soviet Union (USSR), and the Union spent about 39% of expenditure on higher education in its largest republic. This higher education expenditure represented 17% of all education expenditure in Soviet Russia (compared to 10% for the Soviet Union, Table 13.1 ).

In contrast to higher education trends in Western Europe and North America, during the last decade of Soviet Russia enrolment decreased (by about 6% in 1980–1990). The number of students per 10,000 inhabitants also dropped by 13.2% ( Statistical Book on Higher Education 1992 , 166).

The federal design was a distinctive feature of the RSFSR from other Soviet republics. It consisted of several dozen regions, which affected the deliberate dispersion of HEIs within the Russian “subjects of federation” (hereafter referred to as regions). Moscow and Saint Petersburg were the two largest regions (they were in fact cities with the status of regions) and accumulated more than 28% of students (528.7 and 272.9 thousand students, respectively) in 82 HEIs in Moscow and 41 in Saint Petersburg.

Each region had at least one HEI, but often more. The regular set consisted of a comprehensive university, a polytechnic institution, a pedagogical institution and a specialised HEI (described below). This “package” varied according to the size of the population and the distribution of industries across the regions. By 1990 there was a group of regions with 10–18 HEIs and a large number of regions with 3–4 HEIs ( Statistical Year Book 1992 , 278–280).

By the end of the Soviet era, 2,825 million students studied in 514 HEIs within Russia. About 58% of the student population were full-time, about 10% took evening courses and about 32% studied in correspondence courses Footnote 1 (Statistical Book on Russian Federation 1993 , 276). There were 42 comprehensive universities with 328.1 thousand students. Yet, the majority of HEIs were highly specialised and affiliated to a relevant industrial ministry or department.

Thirty-seven per cent of all students studied in 135 specialised industrial HEIs (the largest group of HEIs), with 26% in 94 pedagogical HEIs (the second specialised); most of the other HEIs were small institutes (see Table 13.2 ).

The number of HEIs specialised in economics and law was limited. Moreover, these institutions mostly provided part-time education. About 70% of students took evening and correspondence courses in such institutions, while in all other types of HEIs the percentages ranged from 30% to 50%. The exception were medical institutions where the share of full-time students was about 92%.

In general, the Soviet Russian higher education system, as in the rest of the Soviet system, reproduced the German-style industrial education model (strict segmentation of vocational and higher education) and the Humboldtian academic tradition (although with a Soviet slant). The model reflected “a merger between the need for speedy mass education with the reality of few university centers in the country” (Kuraev 2016 , 182). These centres of knowledge were established by the most prestigious universities, such as the Lomonosov Moscow State University. With regard to the typology of Soviet HEIs (Froumin et al. 2014 ), we can distinguish six types of HEIs in Soviet Russia (Table 13.3 ).

Major Changes in Higher Education Under New Conditions

The 25 years of Russian HE can be divided into three periods with different key policy intentions. The major HE reforms are shown in Fig. 13.1 .

Timeline of key higher education reforms in Russia, 1991–2015 (Source: Developed by the authors)

The first post-Soviet decade can be characterised as “laissez-faire”. After the adoption of the main federal laws on education in the early 1990s that set the framework for HEI activities, the government did not intervene in the higher education system until the early 2000s.

The period of reforms in the 2000s started with the introduction of a unified national exam. In this period, the government also stimulated institutional reforms, such as meeting the expectations of the Bologna Process and the integration of education and research. Moreover, the state launched its first support programmes for federal universities and national research universities.

Since 2012, the government has taken the reins even more explicitly regarding the reform of the Russian HE system and its institutional landscape. It started with the performance-based monitoring of HEIs, which led to mergers and reorganisation. Excellence programmes urged more internationally oriented research activity in selected universities. The ideas of new public management including performance evaluation, transparency of data and managerialism were key drivers for change in this period.

Higher education transformations have been closely related to the political and socioeconomic changes in Russia since the USSR dissolution. Liberalisation and the establishment of a new market economy inevitably affected the education system (Balzer 1994 ). Within the framework of wider socioeconomic changes, we emphasise three main trends in HE development in Russia that significantly influenced the landscape: massification, privatisation of costs (cost-sharing) and changes in the subject mix.

Shift in Demand for Educational Fields

The Russian economy has experienced explicit structural transformations, with a major expansion of the tertiary sector (services) (see Table 13.4 ). From 1990 to 2002, the cumulative loss in the number of employees in the industry sector was extremely dramatic, amounting to about 36%. There were comparable changes in other production sectors such as agriculture (−20%), construction (−23%) and transport and communication (−16%) (Gimpelson et al. 2010 , 4). These changes in the labour market generated a perception of low demand for “hard sciences” and led to a decline in the popularity of engineering HEIs. The services and healthcare sector grew significantly. Employment in the trade sector increased by 85%, in the financial sector by 103% and in public management by 85% (Gimpelson et al. 2010 , 4).

Such changes in the economy and the labour market also affected student choices. Figure 13.2 shows the dramatic increase in social science graduates.

Number of graduates by study field (Source: Aggregative groups calculated by authors based on data from the Federal State Statistics Service ( 2015 ))

Massification

New economic conditions and changes in social attitudes underlie the rapid massification of higher education in independent Russia. Contrary to the previous period (1990–1995) when student enrolments were declining, from the mid-1990s new social values led youth to invest in long-term targets, such as continuing their education. This phenomenon, which can be explained by the quick rise of the wage premium after central control on salaries was abolished (Kapeliushnikov 2006; Gimpelson et al. 2007 ), is defined as “ proobrazovatel’nyi sdvig” (the shift towards education in the life strategies of young people) (Magun and Engovatov 2004 ).

Figure 13.3 shows the pace of massification in absolute numbers and the gross enrolment rate according to national statistics. All indicators have been growing since 1994, and it was only after 2008 that the trend turned downward. Today, the age cohort participation among 17- to 25-year-olds in higher education is about 32%. OECD data show the same upward trend. The tertiary Footnote 2 enrolment rate among 20- to 24-year-olds increased from 28.8% to 30.3% between 2005 and 2014 (OECD 2016 ). Russian higher education has thus become “universal” in the last decade according to Trow’s terminology (Trow 1973 ).

Number of students in HEIs and age cohort participation (17–25), 1991–2014, Russia (Source: Calculated by the authors. Data from Federal State Statistics Service ( 2015 ))

As a response to the massive demand, the number of HEIs doubled from 1991 to 2011. Moreover, the establishment of HEI branches (satellite HEIs Footnote 3 ) provided wider access to higher education in the regions. The majority of satellite HEIs has shaped a demand-absorbing segment along with small private HEIs. In 1993 there were only about 200 public satellite HEIs (National Centre for Public Accreditation n.d .), but in 10 years the number increased more than six times; taking into account private establishments as well increases the number to eight times. The growth originated from local initiatives for new HEIs as well as a liberal governmental attitude towards newcomers on the higher education market. Moreover, the demographic situation and the financial abilities of some households to enrol in higher education also contributed to the expanding supply.

The government had concerns about the quality of education provided by satellite HEIs and there was a general perception that the number of satellites increased too fast. Hence, the government limited the growth of these entities in 2006 by revoking the licence of several dozen satellites. In 2005 there were about 2200 satellite HEIs (1823 public and 378 private), while in 2007 there were only 1646 (1114 public and 532 private). The same concerns in the period between 2012 and 2015 led the Ministry of Education and Science (MoES) to once again reduce the number of satellites, this time on the basis of performance evaluation.

Massification is also associated with the influential trend of expansion in part-time HE. The number of part-time students increased three times over the 25-year period. In 1991, the share of students learning in evening and correspondence courses was 39%, and by 2014 it had risen to 53%. The majority of part-time programmes are not supported by state funding.

Private Sector and Cost-Sharing

The new legislation adopted in 1992 allowed the establishment of private HEIs (the Federal Law “On Education”). The expansion of the HE system was therefore partially due to the growth of the private higher education sector. The number of private HEIs grew to 358, although only 7% of students were enrolled in the private sector.

After 2000, the private sector formed a substantive part of the higher education system, not only in terms of the number of HEIs (there were more than 400 private HEIs) but also in terms of student body. About 14% of students were in private HEIs in 2014. Moreover, private education expanded through the privatisation of public HEIs. New legislation adopted in 1992 allowed public HEIs to attract so-called non-budgetary funding. In line with that regulation, HEIs started to introduce a dual tuition track system (Johnstone 2004). This means that in public HEIs the state provides tuition-free student places and that HEIs can add private tuition tracks. A student can apply for either state funding (more competitive) or pursue a self-paid place in public or private HEIs (less competitive). The competition for state-funded places is based on merit. In general, students with the highest entry exam scores enrol in public HEIs for state-funded places, and students with the lowest exam scores enrol in third-rate private HEIs. The latter are less competitive HEIs that accept the majority of low performers.

As Fig. 13.4 depicts, the balance between the numbers of state-funded students and students paying tuition is inverted when the 1990s are compared with the 2000s. In 1995 only 13.7% students enrolled in public HEIs without state support, but since 2000 more than 40% of students enrolled in public HEIs are paying fees. If private HEI enrolment is included, more than 60% of students in Russia are paying for their education by themselves (since 2002).

Enrolment by source of financing and type of HEIs, 1995–2013, Russia (Source: Calculated by authors. Data from: before 2000, Education in the Russian Federation ( 2006 ); for 2000–2010, Education in the Russian Federation ( 2012 ); after 2010, Federal State Statistics Service ( 2015 ))

Most of the higher education private sector is oriented towards providing popular programmes (e.g. economics, law and management). The government made several attempts to restrain the growing supply, including quotas for privately funded places in public HEIs in 1996, but the quota was abolished (Klyachko et al. 2002 , 17).

The explicit higher education financial policy was thus cost-sharing that took the form of a double tuition fee track system. Students with high exam scores almost automatically get free access to a public HEI, whereas students with lower grades can register for a tuition fee track. The support for regularly admitted students at public HEIs has not changed since Soviet times and is implemented through the dispersion of state-funded slots to HEIs. In the mid-2000s, there was an attempt to introduce a student grant system; however, it faced opposition from academics and society in general (Zaretskaya and Kapranova 2003 ).

The lingering economic crisis partially determined the financial policy directions during the first decade of independence. By 1998, the funding allocated per student decreased by 70% compared with the end of the 1980s (Klyachko and Rojdestvenskaya 1999 , 4). Figure 13.5 shows the gap in HE funding during the late 1990s. Compared with Soviet Russia, the importance of HE in public expenditure on education dropped from 17% in 1987 to less than 10% in 1995–1999.

Public spending on higher education as a share of total public expenditure on education and public spending on education as a share of total public expenditure ( per cent ) (Source: Calculated by authors. Data for expenditure from: before 2003, Education in the Russian Federation ( 2006 ); after 2003, Roskozna ( 2015 ) and FSSS ( 2015 ))

Note: Due to the reform of the financial system in 2003, the data before and after 2003 cannot be directly compared.

Public resources, or lack thereof, affected the operation of HEIs. Most HEIs accumulated bad debts due to inability to pay for utilities. Financial distress and new legal abilities provided a catalyst for active fundraising through the creation of fee-paying slots and the leasing of facilities (Klyachko and Rojdestvenskaya 1999 ).

From the beginning of 2000, government policy was focussed on education as a priority (Johnson 2008 ). The new legal basis for the development of HE (e.g. National Doctrine for Education, 2000; the Concept of Modernisation for Russian Education, 2001; and the Federal Strategic Programme for the Development of Education, 2005) along with rapid economic growth enabled large-scale changes in the design of the HE system (Abankina and Abankina 2013 ). Firstly, these circumstances conditioned substantial growth of public expenditure on HE from 2000 to 2010 (see Fig. 13.5 ), although this share dropped between 2009 and 2014.

The described developments affected the horizontal differentiation of Russian higher education. Before 2010, the main changes took place in the field of HEI education activities (mix of subjects, as addressed earlier). Economy and labour market transformations, along with lack of public financing and state deregulation, urged HEIs to find new sources and broaden their supply. Liberalisation and decentralisation supported “natural” differentiation by legitimising the emergence of a private sector, a dual tuition track system and relatively unrestricted internal programme diversification.

Higher Education Governance and Reforms

Governance structure.

Despite the fact that Russia is a federal country, the decentralisation of state authority over higher education did not go far. In the 1990s some regions established their own HEIs, but very few HEIs were actually under regional control. Since the early 2000s, greater centralisation has affected the HE system. There are few HEIs subordinated by regional authorities (70 HEIs, including satellite HEIs with only 2.5% of students, see Table 13.5 ) and more than 95% of budgetary funding is federal (Froumin and Leshukov forthcoming ).

HEIs report directly to the various bodies of executive power. By the end of Soviet times, there were 28 different ministries supervising HE. In modern Russia there are still 21 different bodies, including the MoES. In general, the MoES provides a broad framework for HE system operation through its right to grant licences, accredit institutions, assign admission quotas and implement federal programmes for HE development.

Most HEIs (catering for 60% of all students) report directly to the MoES. The two other major ministries are the Ministry of Agriculture and the Ministry of Health and Social Development (medical HEIs).

Higher Education and Science

After two reforms of the ministerial body that oversees higher education (1991–1995, the State Committee of Higher Education; 1996–2004, the Ministry of Education), the governance structure changed profoundly in 2004. The new Ministry of Education and Science united two former separate spheres, which are higher education and science. However, the Academy of Science was not abolished. In 2013 the government launched an academy reform, which faced considerable resistance and has not brought crucial changes yet.

In general, in contrast to Soviet HE, research activity in universities is receiving ample support in modern Russia. For example, the federal programme “Integration of Science and Higher Education” (2002–2006) supported the involvement of graduate and postgraduate students in large research projects and leading research centres. The development of HEI research activities and the research university as a model for leading HEIs is legitimated by direct support for research projects from several state foundations, special federal programmes and requirements for academic performance. With the introduction of a new federal law (2012), the qualification framework supports a three-cycle education system.

Although there are no PhD programmes in Russia, the government moved aspirantura (corresponding level to PhD) from the postgraduate to the higher education level. Before the reform, aspirantura was a specific learning track more focussed on self-directed learning in preparation for a dissertation. Now, as a part of higher education, aspirantura programmes are more oriented toward training research skills.

Bologna Process

The Bologna Process is considered one of the major institutional reforms with a direct internationalisation aim and involvement in the global higher education system. Although the government’s intention to join the Bologna Process was much debated and faced strong opposition among university leaders and faculty as well as students and parents, Russia signed the Bologna Declaration in 2003 (Telegina and Schwengel 2012 ).

Since that time, the European Credit Transfer and Accumulation System (ECTS) along with a three-cycle degree system and quality assurance systems have been gradually introduced. The bachelor/master degree structure was optional for HEIs parallel to the 5-year specialist degree (gradually introduced since 1989, in 1992 proposed as the national multilevel degree structure) (Luchinskaya and Ovchynnikova 2011 ). From 2009, all educational programmes were expected to transform into two-cycle degree programmes (with some exceptions). Half of all master students are enrolled in 65 HEIs, suggesting a high level of master student concentration in a relatively small set of HEIs. In 2015, 12% of all bachelor graduates transferred to master programmes. The government has emphasised the importance of master programmes by allocating about 40% of all publicly funded places to master degree programmes in 2016.

Admission: National State Examination

The admission reform started in 2001 and was implemented nationwide in 2009. It included the abolishment of university-specific exams and the introduction of the state entry exam (Unified State Examination, USE). The reform aimed at increasing accessibility, equality and transparency of higher education (Bolotov 2004 ).

The exam is called “unified” as schools and HEIs use the same exam. The USE is designed for the assessment of all results for secondary education graduates and for the enrolment of prospective HE students. The USE is administered in test form and school graduates must choose several subjects to enter an HEI (two are obligatory, mathematics and the Russian language). Due to the double track tuition system with publicly and privately funded slots, students with lower grades can choose to study on a payment basis, yet “passing” scores vary between HEIs.

The USE project is considered one of the most influential institutional reforms in Russian higher education. A high score on the exam has become the aim of most school leavers. Selectivity became a measurable indicator of perceived educational success at HEIs. The higher the average entry exam score of the HEI, the more successful it is in attracting talented students and (presumably) the higher the quality of teaching; this is the guiding logic of the MoES. Selectivity has always been in place, during Soviet times as well, but transparency brought a clear framework for HEI hierarchy based on prestige and demand.

The distribution of HEIs by average exam scores is far from normal:

Only a few HEIs accept students with very high exam scores (most of these HEIs are medical);

Only 10% of HEIs have an average entrance score of more than 67.5 (out of 100);

And 40% of HEIs have very low average exam scores (under 55), with a dominance of private HEIs.

Normative Types of HEIs in Russia

The Federal Law ( 1996 ) defined the structure of the higher education system, considering the types of HEIs: universities, academies and institutes (see Fig. 13.6 ). According to this law, the distinguishing characteristics of these formal types were:

University—wide range of education fields

Academy—focussed on graduate education in one or more fields (often medical HEIs)

Institute—HEIs mostly with a particular specialisation (inherited from Soviet times)

Russian HEIs by nominal types, 1998–2012 (Source: Education in the Russian Federation 2006 ; Federal State Statistics Service, 2015 )

Due to the loss of federal funding in the 1990s, many institutes upgraded themselves to university status, expect those with more stable public financing and attractiveness for tuition-paying students (Bain 2003 ). As the upgrades had to be permitted by the state, the acquisition of university status was associated with diversification of fields.

Soviet diversity with reference to specialisation is also rooted in the description of the HE landscape in post-Soviet Russia. Until 2004 the Federal Statistical Agency collected data on the number of students within such groups as engineering HEIs, agricultural HEIs, transport HEIs, pedagogical HEIs, arts HEIs and medical HEIs. The classification reflects merely path dependence, but does not reflect the actual subject mix.

As mentioned, the new Federal Law was adopted in 2012. It suspended the three HEI categories. In addition to proposing a general HEI category (“organisation of higher education”), the law labels Moscow State University and Saint Petersburg State University as leading classic universities with special status. Other categories included federal universities and national research universities (Federal Law 2012 ).

Leading University Programmes

From the mid-2000s, the government made efforts to select a group of leading universities. In 2004, two universities (Moscow State University and Saint Petersburg State University) were assigned a special status, which implied a particular model of autonomy and funding. From 2006, the government has frequently launched special programmes to shape an elite higher education segment.

In 2006 the government started establishing “federal universities” by merging several regional institutions (e.g. comprehensive, teacher training and arts HEIs). The model implied a special focus on the regional economic context and special funding. Currently, there are ten federal HEIs.

In 2006–2007, 57 institutions received special funding for the implementation of “innovative education programmes”. This was the first example of targeted funding for selected universities.

In 2008–2009, 29 HEIs obtained national research university status with special government funding for research, internationalisation and curriculum development. The programme set incentives for research intensiveness and was intended to stimulate the strategic development of university R&D missions through annual performance evaluations.

Furthermore, in 2013, Russia launched its Excellence Initiative (“5–100”). The Russian government, with the help of the International Council, selected 15 Russian universities to receive special funding in efforts to place these universities among the top 100 universities (in major global rankings) by 2020. In 2015, the programme was extended by adding six more universities.

Although the number of institutions decreases from one project to another, in general the policy trend is to establish a benchmark for leading institutions, modelled on the idea of the research university.

Universities with special status differ considerably from all other HEIs in terms of size, funding, research activity and enrolments. Federal universities are the largest in the higher education system in terms of student numbers and federal funding. Research universities in the 5–100 programme rely mainly on federal funding. Moreover, the excellence programme spurs the internationalisation of education activity and research. The number of publications indexed in Scopus and the Web of Science is several times higher than in other universities. Vertical diversification, initiated by the structural reforms, has increased. The most talented students choose these universities. Almost 50% of school Olympiad winners enrol in 5–100 and national research universities.

Post-massification: Quality and Performance

The topic of insufficient quality and quality assurance is a recurrent theme on the agenda in public and policy debates, fed by nostalgia with reference to the Soviet past. The government has made an attempt to reshape the accreditation system. The authorities decided to establish a special department inside the federal ministry which now exists as the Federal Service of Inspection and Control in Education and Science.

In 2012, the MoES launched HEI Performance Monitoring, an annual institutional assessment of HEIs. The MoES collects and publishes about 150 indicators for each HEI, and six to eight indicators that vary through the years are also selected as performance indicators. They describe all fields of activity such as education (average entry exam score), research (share of R&D revenues), international activity (share of international students), financial stability (revenues per faculty) and faculty salaries (ratio between average faculty salary and average salary in the region). High results on at least four indicators are considered critical for efficient HEIs.

A radical policy was implemented when the first results of the Monitoring Project were published. In 2012–2013, 52 HEIs and 373 satellite HEIs were either reorganised through mergers, or the Federal Service of Inspection and Control in Education and Science revoked their licences. In subsequent years, more than 200 HEI satellites were reorganised and even private HEIs could not avoid reforms.

Current Higher Education System Landscape in Russia

As the Russian higher education system is large, we employ a quantitative analysis to identify the types of HEIs by implementing a cluster technique to categorise the classification of HEIs. In previous sections we described the major changes that influenced the HE landscape in post-Soviet Russia, and on this basis we suggest key indicators for the quantitative analysis in the table below (Table 13.6 ).

Approach, Sample and Data

The general sample consists of 1,653 parent and satellite HEIs. For the quantitative analysis, we take only 772 parent HEIs, excluding the satellite HEIs as a relatively homogeneous group. We exclude some organisations that are in the process of reorganisation, as well as HEIs with unreliable data (according to the Monitoring Project), arts and military schools (due to the specificity of their activities) and significant outliers.

We use Ward’s agglomerative hierarchical clustering technique. Euclidean distance is chosen as a metric, and all variables are standardised into Z-scores. Several parameters have high (and significant) levels of correlation.

All data are retrieved from HEI Performance Monitoring 2015 (Monitoring 2015 ). Considering the programme diversification index and following previous studies on programme diversification in universities (e.g. Rossi 2009 ), we use the Herfindahl-Hirschman index.

Empirical Results

The hierarchical clustering technique is flexible in terms of arriving at the number of clusters. A step-by-step analysis of relevance for each division revealed five clusters. Hence, Table 13.7 shows the contemporary classification of HEIs in Russia.

Government policies resulted in the segregation of a group of research-intensive universities. Research universities (cluster 1) pursue high selectivity, are oriented towards the provision of master programmes and cater mostly for full-time enrolment. Despite the long history of division between research institutes and universities during Soviet times, the global movement towards world class is reflected in the Russian higher education landscape. However, very few of these universities have achieved global recognition yet.

Post-Soviet expansion also provided an opportunity for some universities to grow into large institutions alongside an internal diversification and growth of part-time enrolment. These large regional public universities (cluster 2) are often situated in provincial centres and are usually significantly supported by the state. Examples of such giants can be found worldwide, but mostly in big federal countries. In Russia, these HEIs attract talented students and focus on their teaching mission but still engage in some research.

The Soviet legacy of specialised training in particular fields remained vital for another group of institutions. The peculiarity of specialised HEIs (cluster 3) is their limited internal diversity, relatively small size and high selectivity. These are mostly medical institutions accompanied by Soviet-type industrial universities that managed to sustain their narrow orientation in the reconfigured economy.

The next groups represent the consequence of higher education expansion that can be identified in all high-participation systems worldwide as a reaction to the growth of demand. In order to achieve economic sustainability, the higher education system grew through internal diversification in Soviet institutions, as well as through the emergence of new institutions, an increase in part-time education and privately funded places (both in traditionally public HEIs and others). The demand-absorption HEIs constitute a large share of the higher education system.

The group of mass public universities (cluster 4) is close to the group of regional giants (cluster 2), but they are smaller, less selective and more dependent on public funding. With regard to their funding model, we can assume they represent the state’s function of providing widened access to higher education.

Three groups of privately funded institutions (clusters 5 and 6) represent different aspects of popular demand. The small specialised HEIs (5a) provide education in particular low-cost popular fields (usually economics, management and social sciences). The diversified HEIs (5b) also have a low level of selectivity and a low share of full-timers, but a broader range of fields. The group of “open” HEIs (cluster 6) focusses entirely on part-time distance education and provides credentials in popular fields.

The post-Soviet social and economic higher education environment along with massification, new regulations and targeted government activities have shaped the institutional landscape in Russia in the past decades. Decreased funding pushed existing HEIs to seek new sources in order to survive. Old and newly established institutions, both public and private, entered a new competition that went along with regulatory liberalisation. The expansion was moreover fed by popular demand in reaction to the new social and economic conditions. Yet, many HEIs continued playing the “higher learning tradition” card by addressing their legacy, mostly Soviet, in order to legitimate their existence in current times. Many internally diversified HEIs even kept their old names in order to demonstrate their commitment to parent industries. This conservatism combined with general organisational adaptability has sustained path dependency.

From the 2000s, the comeback of the state as financially stronger and more managerial brought several policies that introduced new rules of the game: the Unified National Examination, and two-level (later three-level) degrees.

The initiatives that aimed at system segmentation (from 2006 on) shaped the Russian institutional landscape even more, in both the vertical and horizontal dimension. The creation of federal universities and assignment of national research universities resulted in the coercive adoption of new functions: regional labour market supply, research efficiency, and international recognition.

Public claims for education quality and the governmental intention to spend resources efficiently drove the system to the “optimisation” period (from 2012 on). Along with licence withdrawals, the state widely used mergers to correct the system to a manageable size and assumed higher levels of efficiency. The government is continuing with system segmentation to build an institutional hierarchy.

The aspiration of a clearly arranged structure for the higher education system is not new. The Soviet design also outlined clearly defined functions. However, the size of the system and the emergence of popular demand as defining factors closed the door on a renaissance of the Soviet masterplan, but also on a wholesale introduction of Western concepts and structures. For the state and society, it is still a work in progress to find balance in the institutional landscape with regard to regional differentiation, the country’s global ambitions, its path dependency from historical developments and the relevance of higher learning in the contemporary and future socioeconomic environment.

There are two forms of part-time education in Soviet and post-Soviet countries. Here we use correspondence courses to indicate the form of education in which students visit HEIs twice per year. Part-time education was also called “on-site education” (study without leaving the workplace).

The tertiary system includes both the higher education and secondary vocational education systems in Russia.

It should be noted that in Russia a satellite HEI operates as a representative of the parent HEI, but it is a separate (independent) legal entity. The ties and relationships with parent HEIs can vary from direct “supervision” to absolute independence.

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Platonova, D., Semyonov, D. (2018). Russia: The Institutional Landscape of Russian Higher Education. In: Huisman, J., Smolentseva, A., Froumin, I. (eds) 25 Years of Transformations of Higher Education Systems in Post-Soviet Countries. Palgrave Studies in Global Higher Education. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52980-6_13

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Published : 25 April 2018

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Academic rights in russia and the internationalization of higher education.

Translated by David Beecher

Modernizing reforms in Russia carried out under the banner of “Westernization” and “Europeanization”— and this has been their character throughout history—tend to treat modernization as a technical process, ignoring institutional transformations, not to mention the democratic values embedded in the modernization project. The implementation of educational reform in Russia thus raises a question: How does the incorporation of Russia into the system of international higher education affect academic rights and academic freedom? Can integration into that system by itself guarantee academic freedom within the Russian academy? To answer this question, one must first understand the role academic freedom played in Soviet scholarship and education.

The Soviet Era

The autonomy of the university and freedom of inquiry and education in the Soviet Union were, of course, illusory, primarily because of the role that higher education and science played in the Soviet modernization project, which aspired not only to technological and military-industrial development but also to the education of the “new communist person.” The natural sciences were closely monitored by the special security services because they were associated with military production, while the human and social sciences came under close scrutiny because they were part of the Soviet ideological project. Only a small portion—no more than 7 or 8 percent—of Soviet scholars enjoyed some freedoms within the Academy of Sciences, a research institution. The government granted much greater freedom here than in the broader system of higher education in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in order to keep science as such from completely disappearing. The system in general was rigidly centralized, uniformly administered both vertically and horizontally. It lacked competition and was based on single-channel funding. Civil society, of course, played a minimal role.

In practice, the nature of Soviet control was uneven, and it was especially weak in the wake of Khrushchev’s moderate de-Stalinization in the 1950s. A wide gap existed between official decrees and real practices in the institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences and in universities, one that persisted until the last days of the Soviet Union and led to the emergence of protodemocratic processes such as the election of rectors and deans. Symbolic capital—especially international recognition as scientists—accorded privileges that might be viewed as a limited form of academic freedom to a very small percentage of scholars. Moreover, even during the Cold War, communication and cooperation with foreign countries did not cease, although it was severely limited and tightly controlled by the party, state bodies, and the state security agency, the KGB.

Nevertheless, it was this qualified freedom that led some research scientists to become founders of the Soviet human rights movement. Despite the near disappearance of this movement by 1980, perestroika and especially the first and last free elections in Russia in 1989 turned a number of academics, including A. A. Sobchak, A. D. Sakharov, and G. V. Starovoitova, into leaders of the new democratic movement. Scientists had been elected deputies before, but according to the logic of Soviet parliamentarism, those who became legislators had tended to come from the Academy of Sciences, prominent scientists who saw their political participation as a “social burden” and did not have any particular understanding of their role and tasks as elected representatives. The new wave of scientists in politics was different: it was not by chance that of the 24 percent of representatives of science, education, and culture who were members of the last Supreme Soviet legislative body, most joined the democratic wing.

New Divisions

After the collapse of the Soviet Union and the fall of the Iron Curtain, the situation changed significantly. For a long time the Russian Academy of Sciences and other educational institutions granted scholars considerable academic freedom, and the institutions themselves enjoyed a high degree of autonomy, albeit with very little state funding. I was at that time a student at Saint Petersburg State University, and I vividly remember the winter of 1992, when, as a result of a lack of funds, university buildings were not heated and students sat in classes as they sat in the military—in overcoats and gloves, in order keep their hands from freezing. Nevertheless, scholarly activity and educational contacts grew. The Soros Foundation Open Society Institute played an important role in supporting science and education, providing funding for projects and researchers, and encouraging many Russian national and educational initiatives.

At the same time, participation in the international system led to a deep split within the Russian educational community. The segment that supported international education and science, was competent in foreign languages, and generally shared a liberal-democratic orientation became an embattled minority within the national academic community following the long years of humiliation and economic crisis. Scholars in the humanities and social sciences began to recall the Soviet Union as a place that guaranteed basic material conditions that had all but disappeared by the end of the twentieth century, and many rejoiced at the reestablishment of state control in the spheres of education and science, even when this control was highly ideological. Researchers have described this as a “defensive reaction” of the Russian humanities to the apparent inequality in the divisions of the international intellectual labor market.

This part of the academic community has welcomed in many respects the conservative shift that has taken place in Russian higher education since the turn of the century. But because this shift coincided with the introduction of neoliberal market reforms in Russian education, Russian scholarship has been caught between the Scylla of traditionalist conservatism and the Charybdis of capitalist neoliberalism. The economic growth of the early 2000s transformed the state’s role in science and education as the state reasserted control over these spheres. During this period the institutional conditions for interaction between the academy and the state took on a Soviet character that they retain today. Apparently, state security agents have set as their main task “opposition to the West,” which they view as promoting a “creeping aggression” against Russia, including through influence on science and education.

Xenophobia—particularly with respect to American organizations—thus has taken root in Russia. The Soros Foundation was declared an “undesirable organization” in Russia, and official collaboration with such an organization could cost several years in prison; in response to the struggle “against the machinations of the West,” books published in the 1990s with financial support from Soros were removed from general circulation at a number of libraries and placed in special storage.

The political reaction to the 2011–12 protests against election fraud made use of old as well as new practices of control. These included both institutional restrictions on academic freedom and new legislation and ideological policies that have sharply increased the pressure on universities by the state. Such practices are usually justified by citing the need to “protect national sovereignty and state secrets,” primarily from the countries of the West. Significantly, however, in introducing these restrictions, Russian lawmakers constantly refer to the practices of democratic Western countries, stressing that the use of measures that restrict academic freedom is widespread in the world and hence does not prove the existence of authoritarian tendencies in Russia.

The so-called first departments, by which Communist Party control was exercised in Soviet times, disappeared almost everywhere after the collapse of the Soviet Union. But now they have returned to universities and other academic institutions. The law on export control, the provisions of which became more stringent after 2005, has also become a convenient tool not only to control opposition-minded teachers but also to abet a wave of spying—even state-approved contracts have come to be treated as acts of industrial espionage and treason against the homeland. Thus, for example, the scientist Viktor Kudriavtsev is currently in prison, accused of treason for having allegedly collaborated with the von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics in Belgium in a cooperative arrangement previously approved at the state level. An analysis conducted by a group of Russian attorneys called Team 29 shows that most such charges are based on secret examinations conducted by anonymous experts, which are simply impossible to refute within the framework of existing legal procedures.

The fight against “extremism” has become another convenient tool for restricting academic rights and freedoms. In Russia, the charge of extremism has a very loose definition, ranging from “rehabilitating Nazism” to “trying to organize a color revolution” (Moscow State University graduate student Azat Miftakhov was falsely accused of the latter, according to human rights activists, and was tortured in prison). Most of the new legislation explicitly or implicitly asserts that unspecified forces either artificially inspire interethnic conflict in a supposedly traditionally tolerant Russian society or seek to provoke revolution.

Finally, a turn toward the policy of “protecting traditional Russian” (read: conservative) values could not but affect higher education: references to a special “national” science and the need to protect it from the machinations of a hostile West are commonplace in articles and speeches of many representatives of Russian academic science and education. In important respects, such appeals to nationalism seem to be a product of the way Russia joined the Bologna Process, which has sought to ensure comparability in the standards and quality of higher education throughout Europe.

The Bologna Process

By 2003, the Russian Federation had officially embraced the Bologna Process, and several of the country’s universities signed the Magna Charta Universitatum, the 1988 declaration that initiated it. Accession to the Bologna Process, the rapid development of new humanitarian disciplines such as human rights and gender studies, and the emergence of new educational institutions, often as a result of international support and cooperation, seemed to promise a major breakthrough for Russian scholarship. Nevertheless, as others have noted, such initiatives contradicted the desires of the country’s academic elite and came mainly at the behest of a political elite that sought to take advantage of Bologna and European integration for its own purposes. Numerous publications on the Bologna Process in Russia emphasized the “particularity” of Russian science, its “indisputable” advantages over Western science, and even the supposedly obvious superiority of a Russian doktorat over a Western PhD. Such arguments have often stressed the special spiritual mission of Russian higher education. Russia, according to these accounts, has traditionally aimed to provide a moral education, while the “unspiritual” West remains pragmatic and selfish. Thus, on the whole, the academic community in Russia accepted integration into the Bologna Process without much enthusiasm and for limited purposes.

Efforts to integrate Russia into the European educational system and develop international contacts have been hindered by Russia’s limited experience with international projects, by inadequate knowledge of foreign languages within Russia, and by modest state funding. Labor law, meanwhile, actually impedes the normal work of international teachers in the Russian higher education system. And the document that lays out the key philosophical values underpinning the Bologna Process—the Magna Charta Universitatum—remains practically unknown in Russia: even those seventeen Russian universities that signed it in 2003 rarely apply its principles and often do not include its text on their websites.

Nevertheless, mere participation in the Bologna Process helped stimulate an educational revival in Russia. European University in Saint Petersburg, Smolny College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at Saint Petersburg State University, and the Moscow School of Economics and Social Sciences (known popularly as Shaninka) , have all hosted international higher education projects, and academic exchanges have increased. In the years immediately following Russia’s accession to the Bologna Process, the state actively encouraged such projects in the interest of promoting Russian higher education, and it invested considerable sums in the so-called 5-100-20 program, which set a goal of having five Russian universities in the ranks of the hundred best universities in the world by 2020. It is now obvious, however, that this goal will not be achieved. The position of Russian universities in international rankings continues to be middling at best. By 2018, only Moscow State University had reached the top hundred in the QS World University Rankings (at 90th place), while other leading Russian institutions hovered around 350 in the international rankings. International publications and the number of foreign students and teachers play an important role in these rankings.

Active financial support from the state has not significantly increased the presence of Russian scholars in international publications. Steady growth in the number of international publications in the 1990s has since stagnated, and Russia remains stuck at twelfth or thirteenth place globally. The number of Russian international publications in 2016 was but a tenth of those of the United States and China, the world leaders in numbers of scholarly publications. In addition, Russian scholars’ publications are overwhelmingly restricted to the natural sciences, where, since the times of the Soviet Union, the country has traditionally been strongest. Finally, a fascination with metrics primarily based on English-language publications has further separated the “Western-oriented” minority within the academy from the majority of university scholars, who are increasingly excluded from the international higher education community and face dim domestic career prospects and low salaries.

The number of international students in Russia, despite a slight increase, remains inadequate, and as in the Soviet years, three-quarters of international students come from countries of the former Soviet Union, with the remaining quarter mostly from Asia (China and Vietnam) and Africa. Russian higher education remains most attractive for countries with nondemocratic regimes, and it seems that Russia employs higher education primarily to promote nondemocratic development. In this regard, it is significant that Rossotrudnichestvo, an organization responsible for attracting students to study at Russian universities, directly states in its report for 2016 that “an education quota has established itself as one of the effective tools” of Russian soft power in the area of international humanitarian cooperation.

Russia uses international education for soft power not so much to enhance the overall reputation of the country but rather to advance a certain political agenda, and, at the same time, “national cultural values.” The assertion of Russia’s interests in the post- Soviet space is carried out through both the network of “Slavic universities” and a number of branches of Russian universities, which are open in several post-Soviet countries (significantly, not in Ukraine). With the goal of exerting “influence on the world through education,” Russia not only supports higher education programs in post-Soviet states but also actively exerts influence in unrecognized states—in fact, a Tskhinvali University in South Ossetia, a Russian-occupied region of Georgia, functions as a Russian institution. Currently, the university in the Donetsk People’s Republic in eastern Ukraine has Russian accreditation, and Russia continues to be the only country that recognizes diplomas issued by Donetsk and Luhansk universities, both of which are located in occupied eastern Ukraine.

Thus, the internationalization of higher education in Russia has two aspects. On the one hand, the Bologna Process, which was intended to draw Russia into the European educational sphere, clearly is not only stalling but has been interpreted by Russia solely as a formal bureaucratic process that does not require institutional restructuring or attention to the basic values underpinning the process. On the other hand, what the German historian Stefan Plaggenborg recently described as “structural Sovietization without socialism” is now taking root under the guise of neoliberal reforms. This domestic Sovietization, reinforced by a specific understanding of what the internationalization of Russian higher education means abroad, seems, paradoxically, to be alienating Russia further from the international educational community.  

Dmitry Dubrovskiy is a research scholar at the Center for Independent Social Research in Saint Petersburg and associate professor at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow. David Beecher is a lecturer in global studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where he specializes in the history of modern Europe and Russia. 

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Russian university’s China campus sends ‘strong signal’

Once built, aerospace institute on southern island of hainan will become first solo campus run by russian institution inside asian superpower.

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Plans by a Russian research institute to establish a campus in China send a strong message about the two countries’ intentions to strengthen their research and higher education ties, scholars have said.

This month, regional  media reported that the National Research University Moscow Power Engineering Institute (MPEI) will set up a branch campus on the southern Chinese island of Hainan, specialising in aviation and aerospace teaching and research, with an opening scheduled for mid-2025.

Researchers said that plans by the university, which will be among the few foreign ventures in China to develop without the help of a local partner, marked a new step in Sino-Russian collaboration. The announcement came as  relations between Russian and Western universities  have frayed because of the Ukraine war .

Futao Huang, a professor at the Research Institute for Higher Education at Hiroshima University , said he believed the timing of the move – two weeks after Chinese president Xi Jinping’s visit to Russia – was not coincidental.

“It clearly suggests that China has adopted a different strategy to undertake academic collaborations with Russia, which appears to be more important [to it] than any other countries,” he said.

“You cannot overestimate the significance of the establishment of this Russian university in China.”

Other recent signs also point to strengthened ties. Student mobility between the two nations has increased over the decade, picking up pace  last year when the number of Russian students learning Chinese doubled to 17,000 compared with 2021.

But Russia has not so far established any stand-alone branch campuses – developed without the cooperation of a local university – in China.

China already has a strong tradition of university partnerships, being the largest importer of international branch campuses, with 47 such institutions currently, according to the Cross-Border Education Research Team (C-BERT) hub , which measures trends in offshore education.

Though such “branches” tend to be based on foreign university curricula and award degrees that name the foreign institution, most of these are set up in affiliation with local universities, said Jason Lane, C-BERT co-director and dean of the College of Education, Health and Society at  Miami University  in Ohio.

He said it was “very rare” for an institution to establish itself in China without a local partner. He said he believed that the University of Nottingham ’s Ningbo campus was the first example of a foreign university doing this.

The C-BERT database lists one other Russian university with a campus in China: the Shenzhen MSU-BIT University, a branch of Moscow State University (MSU) and the Beijing Institution of Technology. Though the “curriculum and faculty appear to be entirely tied to MSU”, Professor Lane said, it is a joint venture. 

He agreed about the significance of the MPEI campus plans. “This is a clear indication of the strengthened ties between the two nations,” he said. 

“A branch campus, among all forms of international education, serves as a sort of academic embassy that both sends a symbolic message of the relationship and creates a meaningful foothold on which to build stronger partnerships.”

He said he believed that the university would meet its planned opening in 2025, despite needing to build a 137-acre campus from scratch and negotiate complicated logistics.

“Setting up the operations, recruiting students and offering a select array of courses in two years is aggressive,” he said. “But with enough resources, nearly anything is possible.”

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