Institute of Education

Research & Expertise to Make a Difference in Education & Beyond

IOE Study Featured in European Educational Research Journal


A recent paper by IOE expert Elizaveta Sivak and HSE vice rector Maria Yudkevich has been published in European Educational Research Journal.


Entitled ‘The Academic Profession in Russia’s Two Capitals: The Impact of 20 Years of Transition,’ the paper gives an in-depth and multifaceted portrayal of the trends that the academic work environment in Russia’s two largest cities, Moscow and St. Petersburg, has seen in the past two decades.

Alongside the Russian context proper, the study also provides a comprehensive cross-border perspective on the academic profession. Drawing on a representative set of international comparative data, the authors discuss developments in a range of key characteristics, including teaching/research preferences, attitudes to university governance, work-related strain, and career decision-making factors, for several other ‘changing academic profession’ countries.

Abstract

This paper studies the dynamics of key characteristics of the academic profession in Russia based on the analysis of university faculty in the two largest cities in Russia – Moscow and St. Petersburg. We use data on Russian university faculty from two large-scale comparative studies of the academic profession (‘The Carnegie Study’ carried out in 1992 in 14 countries, including Russia, and ‘The Changing Academic Profession Study’, 2007–2012, with 19 participating countries and which Russia joined in 2012) to look at how faculty’s characteristics and attitudes toward different aspects of their academic life changed over 20 years (1992–2011) such as faculty’s views on reasons to leave or to stay at a university, on university’s management and the role of faculty in decision making. Using the example of universities in the two largest Russian cities, we demonstrate that the high degree of overall centralization of governance in Russian universities barely changed in 20 years.

View the full paper