Translated material
First among the highest
12 Russian universities have been assigned a new status
Another 12 Russian universities received the title of “National Research University”. The press service of the Ministry of Education and Science reported this yesterday. Together with the pioneers - the Moscow Engineering Physics Institute and the National Research Technological University on the basis of the Moscow Institute of Steel and Alloys - they will form a network of scientific and educational organizations of the new generation, which President Dmitry Medvedev announced exactly a year ago. Declaring the priority of education among social programs, the head of state initiated the legislative consolidation of the new status of leading universities - the corresponding law was signed by the president in February. It is assumed that national research universities will be selected through competition, and their network will be constantly updated. Over the course of ten years (this is how long the status will be valid), the university will have to constantly confirm its right to be among the leaders of Russian education with its research programs and the level of knowledge of its graduates. If the university development program during its implementation is found to be ineffective, the university may be deprived of its status, and with it additional funding from the federal budget.MEPhI and MISiS received special status as research universities back in October 2008. Competitive selection for the opportunity to join them took place for the first time this year. A commission headed by the Minister of Education and Science of the Russian Federation Andrei Fursenko selected a dozen winners from 110 applicants. Experts assessed the state and dynamics of the university’s development in recent years and checked university programs. As a result, the leaders were the State University - Higher School of Economics, Kazan State Technical University named after Tupolev, Moscow Aviation Institute, Moscow State Technical University named after Bauman, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Nizhny Novgorod State University named after Lobachevsky, Novosibirsk State University, Perm State Technical University, Samara State Aerospace University named after Academician Korolev, St. Petersburg State Mining Institute named after Plekhanov, St. Petersburg State University of Information Technologies, Mechanics and Optics, Tomsk Polytechnic University. Among the research ones, Moscow State University and St. Petersburg State University, which have a special federal status, are deliberately not mentioned.
In a conversation with a Vremya Novostey correspondent, Lev Lyubimov, deputy scientific director of the Higher School of Economics, assessed the choice of 12 new universities as a “status decision.” “This does not provide significant material advantages, but this could not be expected in an era of crisis,” says Mr. Lyubimov. - True, I would like to have hope that the authorities will understand what a university is. Now our leaders expect us to provide educational services worth 30 million if they give us one. But in this case, our universities will become only one-thirtieth Harvard.” According to him, the funds that the State University-Higher School of Economics will receive for the new status will amount to only about 4% of the annual budget of this university. Meanwhile, Mr. Lyubimov notes that the new status is “a dose of moral satisfaction” for the university staff.
The press service of the Ministry of Education and Science clarified, however, that the status will be supported by sufficient allocations. Each of the research universities will receive up to 1.8 billion rubles. from the federal budget for the implementation of its development programs in 2009-2013. True, annual extra-budgetary co-financing of programs in the next five years should be at least 20% of budget allocations. The university can use budget money for the purchase of educational, laboratory and scientific equipment, advanced training and professional retraining of its scientific and pedagogical workers, as well as for the development of educational programs, development of information resources, improvement of the management system and scientific research.