Laboratory for University Development

Publications

• Book

  Assessing the Contributions of Higher Education: Knowledge for a Disordered World

  What is ‘higher education’ and what does it do for persons, organisations, communities, cities, nations and the world? What difference does it make? How do we know? While these questions and others related to the contributions or effects of higher or tertiary education are discussed across the world, there is no agreement on what are those contributions. The higher education sector is connected to most other parts of society, and it is often difficult or impossible to isolate its discrete causal effects. In some quarters a disabling thinking prevails. Higher education is modelled as if all that this vast sector produces is measurable earnings benefits for individual graduates and new research-based products for globally competitive industry. Yet graduate earnings are partly shaped outside education, by family background and economic fluctuations; and higher education not only augments careers, it immerses students in knowledge, and it helps to shape them as people, and has many other individual and collective-social outcomes, as Assessing the contributions of higher education will show. Still, the fact that radical simplifications dominate this debate is not surprising. It is difficult to grasp the full range of what the sector does. There is no universal template and no comprehensive account. Perceptions of what higher education is vary according to beliefs about government and society, and the disciplinary or purposive lens used to view the sector, not to mention the interests at stake. Is both a common and comprehensive understanding possible, and if so, how? That question repeatedly returns during this book.

  Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishing, 2023.

• Article

  Romanenko K.

  Tertiary Education in Single-Industry Towns: Vocationalisation and Controversial Social Role

  This paper explores the social role of tertiary education institutions in post-Soviet single-industry towns, where local development hinges on specific industries. The research methodology involved studying the perceptions of the dynamics of education-industry cooperation and student educational trajectories and educational choice. The data, collected during a field trip to five single-industry towns of the Ural region, comprise interviews with tertiary education institutions faculty, industry representatives, and students. Sixty interviews supplemented with official documents were analysed with the help of grounded theory and discourse analysis. Three main tertiary education models were identified: a multi-campus university, a private engineering university, and an educational centre at an industrial company. Such institutions offer vocational and higher education and professional development programmes, while industry makes a crucial contribution to their strategical management, curriculum, and infrastructure. Students explained their educational trajectories by the cultural narratives of ‘reliability and care’, ‘organised leisure’, ‘family legacy’, and ‘duty and predestination’. Tertiary education in these towns supports local development by supplying skilled labour and retaining young people, but it can also limit their opportunities and blur the lines between vocational and higher education.

  Journal of Vocational Education and Training. 2024.

• Book chapter

  Saryglar S., Maximova S. G.

  Specifics and Factors of Social Adaptation and Integration of Migrants in Russian Border Regions

  The paper presents a theoretical and sociological analysis of social adaptation and integration of migrants. We turn to the classical model of acculturation, consider the types of adaptation, and focus on analyzing the essence of social adaptation to determine the processes of adaptation and integration of migrants. Recently, Russia has seen an increase in migration. The majority of migrants arriving in Russia are CIS citizens. We conducted several sociological studies and interviewed 449 foreign migrants in 2018–2019. The research results emphasize the integration tendencies of migrants. They strive to integrate into Russian society, obey laws, observe behavior rules, and honor values. Howey, they also continue to honor the traditions and values of their culture. We also emphasize the importance of migrants’ social capital. The presence of social connections and migrant communities determines migration and contributes to adaptation and integration. The factor model has shown that a considerable role in the social integration of migrants in Russia is played by (1) language proficiency, (2) the activities of public organizations to protect the rights of migrants, (3) the health of the migrants, and (4) relationships with the local population, in particular, colleagues and employers.

  In bk.: Advances in Natural, Human-Made, and Coupled Human-Natural Systems Research. Vol. 234: Advances in Natural, Human-Made, and Coupled Human-Natural Systems Research. Lecture Notes in Networks and System. Iss. 1. Springer, 2023. P. 367-373.

• Working paper

  Egorov A., Agasisti T., Serebrennikov P.

  How Do The Characteristics Of The Environment Influence University Efficiency? Evidence From A Conditional Efficiency Approach

  This paper explores the black box behind efficiency measurements in higher education and define the determinants of university efficiency. Particularly, it investigates how the efficiency of universities is affected by the characteristics of the territory in which they operate. We propose an analysis that combines two perspectives: 1) the resource dependence theory, suggesting that the location of university can determine the amount of resources available to it; 2) institutional isomorphism, according to which the characteristics of other higher education institutions located in the same area may shape the university production function and the efficiency of its operations. In order to test this framework we use the data on Russian universities and non-parametric conditional order-m efficiency estimator with two categories of exogenous variables. The first group includes the social, economic and cultural characteristics of the region where the university is located. The second set includes the characteristics of other higher education institutions located in the same region. Our findings highlight that the managerial efficiency of universities is strongly associated with the characteristics of the environment in which they operate

  Economics/EC. WP BRP. Высшая школа экономики, 2020. No. 238.