Russian Universities Must Become More Attractive to Foreign Lecturers

On January 31, 2014, at the HSE, the first meeting took place of university representatives participating in the global competitiveness programme 5/100. The group discussed the problems of recruiting lecturers from the international labour market.

In May 2012, immediately after his inauguration, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree to support the entrance of at least five Russian universities into the world’s Top 100 leading universities by 2020. Fifteen universities won the competition for public funding in 2013.

Yaroslav Kuzminov

These universities will now work together to solve the task of improving Russia’s competitiveness. They’ve created working groups, consisting of their representatives, on key areas of modernization: implementing effective contracts, international recruitment, and developing English-taught programmes. Particularly, according to HSE Rector Yaroslav Kuzminov, the universities should work together to hash out the requirements for effective contracts, and this work should not only include teaching load and research, but also participation in university self-administration. Very few Russian universities attract professionals from the international labour market, and the HSE is one of them. Maria Yudkevich, HSE Vice Rector, told the audience about its experience.

Maria Yudkevich

The university attracts various professionals for various periods—from PostDocs to world-renowned researchers. But when entering the global labour market, one must not only offer candidates a competitive salary, but also acceptable work and living arrangements, such as medical insurance. Due to some specifics of Russian legislation, foreigners who work in Russia cannot participate in retirement plans, and this decreases our universities’ attractiveness on the global market. We should also take into account that if one Russian university makes an inappropriate offer to a foreign lecturer, everyone else’s reputation may be affected. That’s why it’s important for us to coordinate our actions.

What should Russian universities do to become attractive to international lecturers?

First, they should create an academic environment where international specialists will be able to develop as professionals through interaction with colleagues. They must support academic mobility, organize seminars and conferences, and provide the conditions for research. Decreasing the teaching load would be a big advantage: the international standard is 2-6 hours per week, while Russian lecturers work several times more than that.

Martin Gilman

A system for evaluating candidates for lecturer positions should be created by the universities entering the global labour market. Martin Gilman, Director of the HSE Centre for Advanced Studies, said that at the HSE candidates are selected in two stages. In the first stage, the commission (whose members themselves have publications in international, peer-reviewed journals) evaluates their research potential. In the second stage, negotiations take place; here departmental administration plays a key role, and the potential staff member conducts lectures and seminars at the university. Last year, several hundred applications were considered by the HSE, but only 13 people were employed under its international recruitment program.

According to Irina Evsyukova, Director of the Project Management Office at the National University of Science and Technology MISIS, her university employed several PostDocs. The experience was a success: the young researchers did a good job, published numerous papers in authoritative journals, and improved their rankings in citation indices.

But most Russian universities are not involved in purposeful recruitment on the international labour market. Foreign lecturers are attracted by certain university departments, which take advantage of their links with international partners. Experience has proven that today this format is inadequate with regards to improving one’s position in international university rankings.

Ekaterina Rylko, specially for the HSE News Service