Over 56,000 Participants from 196 Countries Registered for Open Doors: Russian Scholarship Project
The first stage of the Open Doors: Russian Scholarship Project for prospective master’s and doctoral students has concluded. The winners of the competition get an opportunity to study at Russian universities for free. HSE University is among the most popular universities on the project.
Grigory Yazev
HSE University hosts the competition’s project office, which coordinates the activities of 21 organising universities in the framework of the Global Universities Association. ‘HSE University is among the most popular universities. One out of six competition winners chooses HSE programmes,’ said Grigory Yazev, head of the competition project office, HSE Director for Strategic Academic Partnerships.
One in four participants intends to pass intellectual competitions in two or more of the 14 profiles offered at the contest. The applicants filled in a total of over 78,000 portfolios, and over 21,000 applicants expressed their interest in doctoral programmes at Russian universities.
The sixth Open Doors competition is underway. The second stage will take place in January 2023. The winners of the master’s track will be announced on February 10, 2023. The third stage (for doctoral track participants) will take place from February 23 to March 15. The winners will be announced on March 17, 2023.
The competition is Russia’s first project to attract talent to master’s and doctoral programmes at leading Russian universities. It covers almost every country in the world and makes Russian higher education visible on the global market, helping it compete for the best applicants.
Over 90% of participants are from Asian and African countries. Surveys show that applicants consider studying in Russia on par with going to Australia, the UK, Germany, Canada, China, and the US, which have traditionally appealed to prospective students. Interest in the competition has remained high over the last three years, regardless of the political situation and COVID-related limitations. Open Doors has a master’s and a doctoral track. The master’s track competition is organised in two rounds. The first round is a competition of portfolios for participants who have passed the automated entrance testing. Applicants who successfully pass the first selection stage are invited to the second round for a problem-solving challenge. In addition to the first two rounds, participants of the doctoral track have an interview with their potential academic supervisors. If the interview is successful, participants choose an academic supervisor out of those who have expressed a willingness to work with them.
The competition covers 14 subjects in Russian and English. Successful applicants can gain the status of competition winner for further studies in Russian or English at a Russian university. Open Doors winners get an opportunity to study for free thanks to a Russian government scholarship, as well as other additional opportunities offered by universities.
Open Doors is highly competitive: only one in ten participants (6,500 applicants) passes the first round and goes on to participate in the problem-solving challenge.
The Open Doors Olympiad has been organised since the 2017/18 academic year by Global Universities Association members.
Over 245,000 students from 197 countries took part in the five past Olympiads; 2,800 of them won the opportunity to study at Russia’s best universities. Since the launch of the Olympiad, interest in it has been growing: compared to 2017, the number of participants has grown 5.5 times, the number of countries represented by applicants has increased by 25%, and the number of portfolios has grown by ten times.
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