Rector under supervision

Minister of Education Dmitry Livanov announced a reform of the management system of Russian universities. According to Livanov’s plan, now responsibility for the direction of development of the university should be borne not only by the rector, but also by the supervisory board, which, in order to realize this opportunity, will have the right to recommend to the ministry the appointment of a rector.

Now, let us remind you that the rector is actually the sole head of the university. According to the law, the rector is appointed by the president, prime minister, founder of the university or the general meeting. In the vast majority of cases, the charter of higher educational institutions states that the rector is appointed by the founder, and this is, as a rule, the Ministry of Education.

On Monday, Dmitry Livanov spoke to members of the supervisory boards of leading Russian universities that are part of the “5 in 100” program. The goal of this program, which was created in accordance with one of Vladimir Putin’s “May Decrees,” is that by 2020, at least five Russian universities will be in the top 100 of one of the three rankings of the world’s best universities. Now only Moscow State University occupies such a position.

To implement the “5 in 100” program, the budget for 2014-2016 includes 54 billion rubles. In 2013, the Ministry of Education held a competition among 54 universities that applied to participate in the program; only 15 universities were selected. These are the Far Eastern, Kazan (Volga Region) and Ural Federal Universities, as well as research universities: MIPT, MISiS, HSE, MEPhI, Nizhny Novgorod, Novosibirsk, Samara and Tomsk Universities, St. Petersburg and Tomsk Polytechnic Universities, as well as St. Petersburg University of Information Technologies , mechanics and optics.

The fifteenth, St. Petersburg Electrotechnical University, was expelled from the program in February 2014. The Ministry continues to promise to exclude universities that cannot cope with their stated programs, so that by 2020 only five universities should remain.

In order to participate in the “5 in 100” program, universities voluntarily agreed to certain conditions. Firstly, these universities have received the status of state autonomous institutions, which implies some freedom in the management of finances - however, the financial statements of universities must be provided in accordance with international financial reporting standards and certified by an independent audit. Secondly, universities have prescribed in their charter the appointment of rectors by the founder (that is, the Ministry of Education), but first the candidate must undergo an international competitive selection, and his employment contract must include the achievements of the indicators of the approved university development programs.

It was precisely the procedure for appointing a rector that Dmitry Livanov decided to clarify. The Minister decided to entrust the supervisory boards of universities participating in the “5 in 100” program with responsibility for selecting candidates for rector. Despite the fact that this possibility will not be spelled out in any way in the law, Dmitry Livanov promised to follow the recommendations of the supervisory boards.

Livanov expects that members of supervisory boards, and these are often significant and respected people, will be responsible with their reputation for the candidates for rector they recommend, so there should be no miscalculations.

The supervisory boards actually include famous people. For example, the council of Kazan University is headed by First Deputy Minister of Education Natalya Tretyak, and its members are the Minister of Finance of Tatarstan Radik Gaizatullin and Deputy Federal Minister of Finance Alexey Lavrov.

The Supervisory Board of the Higher School of Economics is headed by the First Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration Vyacheslav Volodin, the council includes the head of the ROC Alexander Zhukov, Alexander Voloshin, the head of Sberbank German Gref, the head of the Federal Property Management Agency Olga Dergunova, the chairman of the board of VTB24 Mikhail Zadornov, the vice-mayor of Moscow for social development Leonid Pechatnikov and the Minister of Education himself, Dmitry Livanov.

The head of the supervisory board of the St. Petersburg Polytechnic University is the Vice-President of the Russian Academy of Sciences Zhores Alferov, and its ordinary members include, for example, the head of Roscosmos Oleg Ostapenko, the director of the Kurchatov Institute Mikhail Kovalchuk, the chairman of the board of the Russian Foundation for Basic Research Vladislav Panchenko and the Deputy Minister of Education Alexander Povalko.

Universities, therefore, are actively trying to recruit people into their supervisory boards who will be able to lobby their interests in various public organizations, business structures and government agencies, and now the Ministry of Education has decided to entrust supervisory boards with the responsibility of selecting rectors.

Addressing the assembled members of the supervisory boards, Minister Livanov said that they should “analyze the existing contracts with rectors and, if necessary, give us proposals for changing them.” “You can hold an international competition for this position, you can propose several candidates or one. We will not discuss your decision, but all responsibility for the development of the university falls on you, you are responsible with your reputation,” the minister said.

Of all those present, according to the Kommersant newspaper, members of the supervisory board of the Higher School of Economics clearly stated their reluctance to change the rector. However, Yaroslav Kuzminov was reappointed to his post only a few months ago, so this problem is not so pressing in the “tower”. Minister Livanov responded by saying that “It doesn’t matter when the contract with the rector was concluded - four years ago or four days ago. We are starting with a clean slate." The head of the Ministry of Education, however, admitted that members of supervisory boards are not at all obliged to change rectors at their universities.

In the future, the minister said, a similar management scheme will extend to other universities, and not just to those universities that joined the “5 in 100” program. According to Deputy Minister Alexander Povalko, a strengthening of the role of the supervisory board can be expected “in all decent universities” (obviously, this means those that can select at least some famous people for their supervisory board).

However, since the strengthening of the role of supervisory boards occurs only due to the goodwill of the minister, who promised to take into account the opinions of respected people, in the future, if something goes wrong, the Ministry of Education can easily “roll back” the reform. For this, just one signature of the minister will be enough.