Formation of Leading Universities: World Practice and Russian Perspective

Abstract

The subject of the research presented is the phenomenon of university leadership and its conditions and factors. The study is based on “success stories” of leading universities in various countries: Harvard and Stanford Universities (USA), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA), Shanghai Jiao Tong University (China), Indian Institute of Technology Bombay (India), Pohang University of Science and Technology (Korea), National Research University Higher School of Economics (Russia). We can conclude that universities become leaders if they manage to “ride the wave” of important changes for society and support the deployment of these processes, as well as use their energy and the emerging opportunities. An important factor is the activity of key partners that support the development of a leading university: professional communities, authorities, governmental institutions and large companies. The impact of leading universities on the development of the regions and countries where they are located is formulated as follows: they form elites; create an educated society, bring up professionals; produce and distribute new knowledge, technological, organizational and institutional solutions; directly develop the economy through the creation of new enterprises and jobs. Leading universities initiate cooperation on a regional and global scale; solving the problems faced by the humanity; they set new future-oriented objectives and goals. In the history of universities, we can observe various relations with the state: partnership of universities and authorities or state domination over universities. The implementation of the strategic interests of the state can be combined with the freedom and activeness of universities, modelling the promising practices of the future “on themselves”. At the same time, the situation in Russia is characterized by the actual absence of “universities as communities” demonstrating a high level of academic autonomy, their own vision of the prospects for the economy, technology, science, education and formulating their own independent strategies