On May 7, a few hours after his presidential inauguration, Vladimir Putin signed a decree for a strategic program on the development of Russian education. One of its chief aims is to ensure that a number of Russian universities enter the ranking of the world’s top 100 universities.
On May 7, a few hours after his presidential inauguration, Vladimir Putin signed a decree for a strategic program on the development of Russian education. One of its chief aims is to ensure that a number of Russian universities enter the ranking of the world’s top 100 universities. In this way, longstanding academic discussions about the underrepresentation of Russian universities in the top 100 ranking lists have been transformed into a presidential order, to be executed by the Ministry of Education, university authorities, and agencies whose duty is to maintain Russia’s international prestige.
How realistic is this goal, considering that the present situation is far from ideal? Of the three leading university rankings in the world, only one – the QS World University Rankings – includes a significant number of Russian universities. In 2011-2012, it ranked the Lomonosov Moscow State University in 112th place, the St. Petersburg State University 251st, the Bauman Moscow State Technical University 379th, the Moscow State University of International Relations (MGIMO) 389th, the Novosibirsk State University 400th, the Tomsk State University and the Ural Federal University 451st-500th, the Higher School of Economics, the Tomsk Polytechnic University and the Peoples’ Friendship University 551st-600th, and the Volga Federal (former Kazan State) University 691st-700th. Only the Lomonosov Moscow State University and the St. Petersburg State University are in the list of the other two world rankings. The Times Higher Education World University Rankings for 2011-2012 ranks the Lomonosov Moscow State University 276th-300th and the St. Petersburg State University 351st-400th. The 2010 Academic Ranking of World Universities, more commonly known as the Shanghai Ranking, places the Lomonosov Moscow State University 74th and the St. Petersburg State University 301st-400th.
There are many reasons for this situation, but chief among them, by and large, is obvious – the exceptionally low publication rate of Russian researchers in peer-reviewed international journals, most of them English-language publications.
The English-centered international ranking system has consistently drawn criticism from Russian quarters. On the one hand, this criticism is understandable, given that a considerable amount of Russian-language research work is not even included in the international rating systems. However, English as the global language of academia is an objective fact and needs to be accepted as such. Denying it will simply lead to further marginalization of Russia’s position in the academic world. The well-known academic adage, “Publish or perish” should more correctly be formulated as “Publish in English or perish.”
Other non-English-speaking countries, which are also underrepresented in the rankings, are making an active push to get their scientists involved in English-language academic life. The most glaring example is China, where one of the prerequisites for a successful academic career, including defending theses, is having papers accepted in peer-reviewed English-language publications. American research journals are now inundated with papers by Chinese postgraduates. Even if they are not always of the highest quality, the number of articles by Chinese researchers in English-language publications is steadily rising, and as a result so is their international ranking.
It is clear that the task is a challenging one, and not all academics can cope with it on their own, especially if they are not accustomed to working in an open international environment. They need institutional help from universities. Universities can promote contacts between researchers and English-language journals (what might be called “academic mediation”), as well as provide language classes for academics and financial support. This kind of support system is already well-established in China, while in Russian universities such assistance is still a rarity. Perhaps the only examples are the MGIMO rector’s grants for the preparation of English-language articles and salary increases for English-language publications at the Higher School of Economics.
One of the biggest problems facing Russian academics is that they do not know how to write academic articles in readable English. Even those who successfully present their papers in English at international conferences often cannot adequately express their ideas in writing. Academic English writing is clearly a very different proposition from merely having a command of professional English. However, only very few Russian universities include this discipline in their curricula, even though it is indispensable, at least for Master Programs, and should be included in the federal standards of higher education as a compulsory subject as soon as possible. That is the only way to teach future generations of Russian academics how to write good English. Today’s professors also need retraining in academic written English. Currently, examples of this kind of retraining in Russia are few and far between.
But the problem is not just a question of university professors not having a good enough command of written English. However widespread a problem this might be, it is a technical matter that can be resolved by postgraduate language classes or even translation of academic papers at the university’s expense. Just as significant is the lack of professional incentives for writing English-language articles, which is the case for many, if not the vast majority of, Russian university professors. Those who are interested in entering the field of international research are already publishing their works in English, while the bulk of university professors are satisfied with having one or two papers a year published in Russian-language academic journals.
The reason is simple: this is all that’s required to hold lecturer posts or full or assistant professorships. English-language publications are not required to apply for the professorship contests which are mandatory for the academic staff of all Russian universities every three to five years, nor are they needed to defend doctoral or post-doctoral theses. In most cases they have no bearing on salaries either.
This question is essentially connected with the much wider, and very sensitive, problem of the emergence of an open competitive environment in university professorial circles. University life has been founded on the principle of egalitarianism since the Soviet era. Financial egalitarianism specifies equal salaries for similar posts, while institutional egalitarianism accounts for centralized planning of professors’ work abroad, the publication of their monographs, etc, bypassing internal competition.
We cannot say that this system is a priori bad. On the contrary, it has created a fairly stable system of social cohesion in universities, which is important for the functioning of the university as a single corporate unit. As a result, the feeling of corporate attachment to their university among lecturers is quite high.
However, this system has also led to complacency among the majority of professorial staff, many of whom lack motivation to aspire to international recognition or other aspects of academic progress. In many cases this has brought research schools to stagnation and exacerbated the brain drain out of Russia as many young professors choose to emigrate when they fail to receive the necessary support from their universities.
It is worth mentioning that the leading universities have begun to respond to this alarming situation. MGIMO was among the first in Russia to transform its egalitarian system into one based on open competition, when in 2005-2007 its Academic Policy Board established an internal ranking for its academic staff, based on the number and quality of their publications, conference communications and other academic achievements. The Higher School of Economics went one step further – it was one of the first Russian universities to differentiate salaries based on academic achievement. However, there is as yet no general trend toward open competition in Russian higher education.
The next issue, which concerns not individual professors but universities as a whole, has to do with the lack of focus on improving international rankings as an essential element of a university’s development strategy. It is clear that at the university level, this goal requires considerable effort to attract foreign students, establish English-language master’s and bachelor’s programs, increase the international academic mobility of professors and students alike, and adopt a professional approach to international educational marketing strategies. All this demands increased funding. Financial support for the leading state universities by the Ministry of Education is essential as the majority of Russian universities are state-financed.
Such a program is already being actively implemented in China. Key government programs of financial support for leading universities (Project 211, Project 985, and C9 League) are directly linked with the improvement in their international rankings. To be fair, Russia launched a government program to select the leading universities, which have been given preferential financial support since 2006, in various forms. Dozens of universities implemented the Innovation Programs in Education in 2006-2008, within the framework of the National Priority Project on Education. More than 10 National Research Universities were established in 2009-2010, and several universities were incorporated into the federal innovation platform program in 2011-2012. However, the task of improving the international rankings of Russian universities has not been set yet.
President Putin’s new decree should change the situation. Obviously one of the ways of implementing this order would be to launch a new government program to target financial support at the dozen Russian universities that currently occupy the highest positions in the international rankings. These efforts could be supplemented by developing national university rankings. One example, the so-called Kuzminov Ranking, has become very popular over the last year. Elaborated under the leadership of Yaroslav Kuzminov, Rector of the Higher School of Economics, this system ranks universities according to the average State Unified Exam grades of their newly enrolled students, which reflects the comparative “strength” and academic potential of students of particular Russian universities.
It is important that the selection criteria for this new government program are based not on bureaucratic criteria, which are not always transparent, but on a university’s existing international and national ranking.
Of course it does not come down to a question of money alone, but the goal set by Vladimir Putin will never be attained without a substantial injection of cash.
Views expressed are of individual Members and Contributors, rather than the Club's, unless explicitly stated otherwise.