Internationalisation of higher education in Russia: National policy and results at institutional level

Abstract

Internationalisation of higher education is a part of the Russian educational policy focused on competitiveness enhancement at the global stage. Both restructuring of higher education sector and special governmental funding have provided conditions for development and support of internationalisation in the leading universities. Despite Russia joining the Bologna Process, there are barriers in three-cycle degree system implementation. Vague legislation and statistics hinder the understanding and development of internationalisation. Regulatory approach to internationalisation of higher education in Russia is characterised by unclear responsibility both at national policy and institutional implementation level. It results in irrelevant basic indicators of internationalisation in different world university rankings. The main part of external institutional environment is revealed from Russian legislation and the Bologna Process documents. With the information available on websites of Russian universities, world ranking agencies, Russian authorities and bodies my chapter first investigates the results of internationalisation in Russia at the level of national policy and university.