Assess
The effects of reforms and policies in higher education
Research
The contribution of universities to socio-economic development
Support
The strategic development of universities and higher education systems
Research Topics
Effectiveness and Efficiency of Universities
- How higher education influences society and individuals
- The contribution of higher education to the economy, politics, culture, and public life in Russia and abroad
The Academic Profession
- Changes in the career trajectories and working conditions of faculty and researchers
- Academic mobility and the issue of inbreeding
- The roles of faculty in universities
- Entry into the academic profession
- The impact of higher education reforms on the status, motivation, and productivity of academic staff
Management Teams and University Governance
- Roles and management structures in modern universities
- The influence of management teams on the strategic development and effectiveness of universities
- The balance between academic self-governance and administrative management in the context of changes in the institutional environment
Mobility of Applicants, Students, and Graduates
- Factors affecting the educational and career mobility of applicants, students, and graduates
- The role of universities in shaping social mobility and professional trajectories
Areas of Expertise and Consulting
01
We design development strategies and programmes for universities and their divisions, as well as roadmaps for strategy implementation
02
We formulate development strategies for regional and sectoral higher education systems
03
We analyse the dynamics of university development using quantitative and qualitative research methods
04
We develop methods and options for universities' participation in the socio-economic development of regions and cities
Our Research Projects
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Production Function of Russian Higher Education Institutions: Analysis of Features, Structure, and Changes
An analysis of internal processes in universities and their productivity, as well as the structure and factors influencing students' educational success, taking into account their diverse educational and career trajectories.
Centre for Basic Research
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Psychological Well-Being of Students in Russian Universities
A comprehensive analysis of the psychological well-being of students in Russian universities and the development of proposals for its improvement.
Mirror Laboratory
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Big Data in the Analysis of Youth Educational Migration Based on Digital Traces
An investigation into the specifics, directions, and factors of educational migration in Russia based on the digital footprints of young people.
Mirror Laboratory
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Educational Success of Students in Russian Universities
A comprehensive analysis of the educational success and failure of students in Russian universities, identifying key factors influencing these phenomena and developing recommendations to enhance educational success.
Centre for Basic Research
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Institutional Role of Higher Education Institutions in Shaping Students' Trajectories
An analysis of the institutional aspects of educational migration, accessibility of educational opportunities, career trajectories, reasons for student dropout, and the effectiveness of management practices in universities.
Centre for Basic Research
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Results of University Activities and Their Contribution to Social Development
Conceptualisation of the contribution of higher education using social theories, analysis of factors affecting educational accessibility and student achievements, and evaluation of the relationship between management practices and the effectiveness of university operations in Russia.
Centre for Basic Research
Educational Programmes Involving Laboratory Experts
News
All newsDecember 27, 2024
Ksenia Romanenko received recognition for her significant contribution to the development of expeditions.
December 27, 2024
The Laboratory for University Development in Moscow invites applications for a Postdoctoral Fellow in Higher Education and Science.
We are open to international cooperation!
The Laboratory for University Development is proud of its rich experience in international research cooperation. We are open to all proposals for collaboration and invite all students to participate in our research projects and academic guidance.
For any proposals, please get in touch with Anna Panova via email.
Team
Laboratory Head
Deputy Head, Chief Expert
Deputy Head
Senior Research Fellow
Leading Expert
Leading Expert
Expert
Analyst
Junior Research Fellow
Junior Research Fellow
Research Fellow
Analyst
Research Assistant
Research Assistant
Research Assistant
Research Assistant
Research Assistant
Research Assistant
Publications
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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.
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Article
Who funds whom exactly? A study of funding acknowledgments
Research funding plays a crucial role in the production of knowledge, and its nature varies considerably from country to country. Numerous studies have analyzed research funding from a bibliometric perspective. However, the role of individual authors in attracting funding remains understudied, and it may be crucial for many actors. We propose a new approach that provides a more accurate picture and test it on post-Soviet countries with low scientific production. We analyze the funding sources of the most visible part of the natural sciences by focusing on the funding acknowledgments of their papers in Nature Index journals published in 2017–2021. Both the country of origin and types of sources are accounted for. Our approach reveals marked differences between traditionally used paper-level and proposed author-level funding links. The shares of funding sources measured in this way are very different, especially with regard to foreign sources and the role of specific countries. This is particularly important when studying international papers and the roles of the countries involved, even more so for the countries with lower research capacity. Utilizing a case-driven funding sources classification, we paint a rich picture of diverging post-Soviet funding landscapes, mostly driven by national grants and EU-wide programmes.
Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology. 2025.
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Book chapter
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Working paper
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 operateEconomics/EC. WP BRP. Высшая школа экономики, 2020. No. 238.