Regional Flagship Universities as Implementation Leaders in the Priority Development Areas of Russian Educational Paradigm

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The objective of the paper is to focus the attention of the international academic community on one of the important aspects of development of Russia’s educational paradigm – a network of regional flagship universities being created in the multilevel system of higher professional education. Such universities are designed to efficiently meet the needs of today’s society and to generate a creative scientific, social, and professional climate in their home regions. They are also oriented to upbringing the competent and active specialists having leadership skills and being able to independently identify the goals of their productive activity, to solve various production tasks, to build relations with others correctly, and to work in a team. The authors of the paper note that a need of creating the regional flagship universities is first of all due to the drastic change in all spheres of life of the modern society; to the social and economic, political, and other reforms in Russia; and to fairly important developments of the Russians’ public life content and conscience. In the paper, objectives and tasks faced by the country’s regional flagship universities are viewed, and the contemporary challenges both to higher educational institutions and the entire system of higher professional education of Russia are analyzed. According to the authors, creation of regional flagship universities will allow the higher educational institutions to go on to a brand new quality level. The university will be more than just a place for students to get higher education at; first of all, it will be a leader in implementing the priority directions of development of Russia’s educational paradigm, a center for introducing various social programs and projects, and a basis for forming a new, cutting-edge, harmoniously developed personality having leadership skills. Flagship universities will also be the activation community for the creative and professional thought of all strata of the population in their home regions or macroregions.