Research Excellence Initiative in Russia: Project 5-100

Initially, Project 5-100 was aimed at entering five Russian universities into the top 100 universities in the leading world rankings of higher education institutions (THE, QS, ARWU). Additionally, two other initial goals focused on the internationalization of education (i.e., achieve at least 15% of international students in each university’s student population and at least 10% of international faculty members). However, during the implementation process of Project 5-100, the aim of the initiative was reformulated: “The goal of Project 5-100 is to maximize the competitive position of a group of leading Russian universities in the global research and education market” (Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, 2020).

The secondary goals were also shifted towards the more qualitative aspects of excellence. Among others, they included the following:

• […] creating long-term competitive advantages for the universities;

• Internationalization in all spheres, development of infrastructure to recruit the best scientists, faculty, managers and students;

• Creation of world-class intellectual products;

• Development of an outstanding academic reputation by conducting

breakthrough research and recruiting the world’s leading scientists; (Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, 2020).

The prerequisites for establishing the Russian excellence initiative have been analyzed by several scholars (Alekseev, 2014; Froumin & Povalko, 2014; Salmi & Froumin, 2013).

The studies describe the steps preceding Project 5-100 in Russia, and, namely, the creation of national research universities, the establishment of federal universities, as well as the

development of international laboratories within Project 220.

By its nature, the Russian Excellence Initiative was implemented via the approach of merging universities. As mentioned above, a number of higher education institutions were merged into federal universities before the start of Project 5-100 (Froumin & Povalko, 2014, p. 8). Later, several 5-100 universities, which did not have the federal status, were also merged in order to participate in the excellence initiative (i.e., Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, Lobachevsky State University of Nizhny Novgorod). Project 5-100 can be identified according to the following characteristics identified by OECD (2014):

• 5-100 was conceived as a temporary project, but for several years there have been discussions regarding the extension of the project after 2020 (Ministry of Science

and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, 2020). However, the program was terminated in 2020 according to the initial plan. This was followed by a support program for Russian universities, Priority 2030, which was announced and launched in 2021 (Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation, 2021).

• In terms of number of participants (21 universities) and amount of funding (total:

1.672,1 million USD in 2013-2020; Neverov & Kliucharev, 2018, p. 106), Project 5-100 is a medium-sized initiative.

• At national level, research priorities were not particularly strong, but each

participating university could choose its own priorities. Thus, Project 5-100 covered a broad research focus.

• Funding was institutional, each university decided on projects it would develop with the support of the 5-100 funding. Governance of Project 5-100 was provided by the Council on Competitiveness Enhancement of Leading Russian Universities among Global Research and Education Centers (hereon – Council), created on the basis of a resolution by the Russian Government. The Council was chaired by the Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Tatyana Golikova and included Russian and international academics, public officials, experts in the field and scholars.

• The strategy of higher education internationalization in Russia has been implemented in line with the developing excellence of Russian universities.

Smolentseva (2015, p. 411) specified the relevant performance indicators that included both dimensions of research and education internationalization of Russian institutions: the number of international students, number of students and faculty members with studying or working abroad experience, international R&D projects, indicators of publications and citations.

The project was recognized as an excellence initiative internationally and included into the recent studies on excellence initiatives around the world. Thus, Hazelkorn (2016) included Project 5-100 in the statistics of number and geography of excellence initiatives and their impact on the positions of universities in global rankings.

In summary, Project 5-100 was launched after several government support initiatives dedicated to small groups of universities mainly located in Moscow and St. Petersburg, since the Russian leadership realized that a new initiative was required in order to boost the

development and international recognition of universities across the country, including regional ones. The launch of Project 5-100 was accompanied by university mergers both in the capital and other regions. The project was characterized by the wide research and educational focus of the selected universities, the moderate number of participants, and institutional funding. Governance of the project was implemented by the advisory body – the Council, and the project was recognized as an excellence initiative by international experts.

2.2.2 Implementation and Results of Project 5-100

The review of the literature on the results of Project 5-100 in this section is provided in consideration of the existing methods of performance evaluation of excellence initiatives described in section 2.1.4. Below is a description of the endeavors made to evaluate the effects of Project 5-100 on its evolution since these approaches shifted in line with the initiative’s goals (as indicated in section 2.2.1).

The very first steps of the participation of 5-100 universities in the excellence

initiative were summarized in a number of Russian authors’ publications in 2014, a year after the beginning of the project. Sterligov (2014) analyzed the progress of research publications since the launch of the initiative. Taradina (2014) wrote about the indicators’ levels of 5-100 universities in 2013 and their 2020 targets. The author concluded (Taradina, 2014, p. 17) that the strategies of the participating universities could be divided into two groups: the

universities which were planning to further develop their strengths and the ones which

changed their primary focus after entering the project. Some cases of universities entering the excellence program were described, for example, by Sandler (2014) as regards UrFU and by Galazhinsky and Prozumentova (2014) for Tomsk State University. Several studies attempted to assess the preliminary results of Project 5-100: researchers estimated the excellence

initiative via formal indicators (Donetskaya, 2014; He, 2020). Researchers also suggested additional ways of measuring 5-100 effects, i.e., through alumni employment (Gurtov et al., 2013).

However, over time it became clear that the original goals of the project could not be achieved. In addition to the original formulation of the goals, the reason for this was the high volatility of the Russian ruble exchange rate to USD and EURO and the fact that the funding of the project in the international equivalent became quite similar to several previous

initiatives in Russian higher education, despite an initial plan to exceed them (Kliucharev &

Neverov, 2018, p. 106). Thus, the estimation of the project results moved from the identification of how the initial goals were matched to finding out which significant improvements were brought by the excellence initiative to its participants, as indicated by Altbach (2021, para. 13) and Quinn (2019, para. 14).

Most of the subsequent studies on Project 5-100 results are related to the evaluation of publication activity, which is a parameter that is understandable and convenient for

measurement. Poldin et al. (2017) estimated the effect of Project 5-100 on publication productivity of 14 participants of the initiative compared to 13 other Russian higher

education institutions from the control group based on funding data, number of publications indexed in the Web of Science database, and number of employees. The research illustrated that the dynamics of the aggregate number of publications for 14 participating universities was 12.2% higher in 2014 and 26.6% higher in 2015 than the same amount for the control

group universities. The number of publications after launching the project also significantly increased for 5-100 universities compared to the expected amount in case they had not participated in the excellence initiative. Furthermore, a number of papers per person and quality of publications increased (Poldin et al., 2017, p. 30).

The authors of the paper were concerned that such a rapid growth in qualitative and quantitative indicators after only a couple of years since the initiative had started may not only be due to the implementation of Project 5-100, but might be a consequence of previous funding and several initiatives launched before the current excellence program. However, recent research proved the high growth in number of publications and papers with high impact indexes. Matveeva et al. (2021) and Rudenko (2020) showed, at national level and at regional level respectively, that the number of publications in general and publications in high ranked journals in Q1 and Q2 were growing faster in Tyumen State University than in 31 other universities since the beginning of Project 5-100.

Matveeva et al. (2021) also illustrated that participation in Project 5-100 increased the number of co-authored publications with both Russian and international academics in 2012-2016. Comparing the Russian case with the German Excellence Initiative performance (see section 2.1.4), the more dynamic start of the excellence scheme could be explained, first, by a low base effect, and second, by the existence of financial motivation for individual academics to increase research productivity since Project 5-100 not only provided funding for academic units and research centers, but for individuals too.

Both Russian and international academics agree that Project 5-100 allowed a group of universities to raise their among other Russian universities. Baker (2018, para. 9) showed that the research productivity of Project 5-100 universities is much higher than the average results of world-ranked Russian universities. The numbers of international students and staff, as well

as international collaborations are significantly higher in 5-100 universities than in other Russian participants of the THE ranking.

Another strand of the discussion on Project 5-100 results developed at the final stage of the initiative and is connected to its effect on the whole system of Russian higher

education. Kliucharev and Neverov (2018) suggested considering the level of influence of the project on the higher education system in Russia as a whole as one of the most important outcomes of the initiative, along with achieving the initial KPI and measuring the efficiency of project participants. A recent publication by Lovakov et al. (2020) showed that the

development of 5-100 universities positively impacted the neighboring environment through the media attention and increased visibility to their cities and regions, as well as co-authored publications with other universities that were also indicated by Matveeva et al. (2021).

Following on from this, performance evaluation of Project 5-100 has been gradually developed. It started a year after the Project’s launch with the preliminary estimation of 5-100 universities’ progress in accordance with the initial targets of the excellence scheme both at institutional and national levels. Then, after the modification of the initial goals in the middle of the project, it shifted mostly to measuring various aspects of publication activity, as well as formal indicators of student and faculty body internationalization, and illustrating that,

despite not achieving the initial goals, the effects of the Project for the participating universities are substantial. It finally turned towards the discussion on the impact of the excellence initiative on the whole national higher education system, especially visibility and publications of other Russian institutions.

2.2.3 Internationalization of Project 5-100 Universities

While the goal of excellence initiatives is “raising the competitiveness of the national science system” (Wespel et al., 2013, p. 13), internationalization strategies are one of the key ways to accelerate this process (Salmi, 2009, p. 60). Usually, the main goal of

internationalization within REI is to attract the best international students, scholars, and research partners.

Despite the fact that the close link between the realization of the excellence initiative and the internationalization of universities exists, little research has been dedicated to this aspect of Project 5-100. The question as to which extent excellence initiatives in different countries have an impact on internationalization of universities does not yet have clear answers. Project 5-100 became an accelerator for the development of the international

dimension of Russian universities not only because of funding, but also due to the positioning of internationalization as a required condition for university development and to the

stimulating competition between Russian universities.

A preliminary estimation of Russian universities internationalization as a consequence of Project 5-100 was taken into consideration by Stukalova et al. (2015). The authors divided internationalization indices into six groups in order to rank Russian top universities

(Stukalova et al., 2015, pp. 282-283) which included (1) the ratio of international students at undergraduate and master programs to the total number of students, (2) outgoing exchange students to the total number of full-time students, (3) international faculty members to the total number of academics, (4) the ratio of international postgraduate students to the total number of students at postgraduate programs, (5) amount of international R&D funding, and (6) amount of international funding for educational activity. As a result, the authors issued their own ranking of the level of universities’ internationalization at the beginning of Project 5-100. Ural Federal University occupied the 8^th position in the ranking out of 10 institutions.

The authors considered only those universities that appeared in the QS 2014 World University Ranking and, thus, all 10 universities in the ranking were 5-100 participants.

However, due to the criteria according to which ranking participants were chosen, not every 5-100 university was included in the scope of the research.

The elements attracting international students to Russian universities as a result of Project 5-100 are described by Rodionov et al. (2016). The authors considered the importance of an international mix of students for improving the positions of universities in rankings and they analyzed the geography of the home countries of the international students studying in Russia. They showed that by the beginning of Project 5-100 in the 2012/2013 academic year, 77% of international students came from Georgia and the CIS and Baltic countries. The authors explained this figure with the fact that there was no language barrier for the students from the listed territories and noted the importance of further developing the relations with these countries. I agree with the author as regards the importance of strengthening the

existing cooperation and admissions of international students to Russian-taught programs. At the same time, from the perspective of the past years of Project 5-100, the creation of

English-taught degree programs and admissions of students from various parts of the world are a crucial driver for the internationalization of Russian universities.

The regional aspect of the development of internationalization under Project 5-100 has been considered for the first time by Uzhegova (2018) in a study which focused on Siberian universities only. Uzhegova noted that, despite the existence of a clear agenda for internationalization among the selected Russian universities, these reforms did not affect different regions of the country equally. Historically, investments in higher education were mainly concentrated in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Therefore, nowadays state support in internationalizing universities is essential for regional Russian universities (Uzhegova, 2018, pp. 62-65). The study only focused on regional aspirations for 5-100 universities in Siberia, but one could argue that other regional participants of the excellence initiatives have also been struggling to overcome the regional challenges of internationalization in Russia.

Smolentseva (2015, p. 411) noticed that strategies of higher education

internationalization in Russia have been implemented in line with the developing excellence

of Russian universities. The author identified relevant performance indicators that include both dimensions of research and education internationalization of Russian institutions:

number of international students, number of students and faculty members with studying or working abroad experience, international R&D projects, indicators of publications and citations.

After several government support initiatives dedicated to small groups of universities mainly located in Moscow and St. Petersburg, the Russian leadership realized that a new project was required in order to boost the development and international recognition of universities across the country, and thus the Russian excellence initiative Project 5-100 was launched. Despite the emergence of some initial research on Russian universities’

internationalization as a result of Project 5-100, questions on the international positioning of universities and the impact of the excellence initiative on academics and staff perception of the growing level of internationalization still provide ample ground for further research. The main reason for this is the fact that little time has passed since the termination of Project 5-100.

Meanwhile, earlier studies have shown that the Russian excellence initiative indeed became a driver for the growth of internationalization in the selected group of universities.

This is a significant element for regional universities in Russia since historically they have had fewer motives to develop an international dimension. Uzhegova (2019, p.152) noted that most of the 5-100 participating universities located in Siberia and the Far East are located in the former so-called “closed cities” that used to have government entry permission due to their physical proximity to nuclear, research or military facilities. In addition, most regional universities across the country were initially established in order to provide these regions with the necessary competences. For example, Ural Federal University was created “with the

need to combine the scientific and industrial potentials of the region” after World War I (Ural Federal University, 2021b).

For the purposes of this study and in order to discuss the phenomenon of internationalization of Russian regional universities, it is necessary to define the term internationalization. Furthermore, evidence from other countries which have implemented excellence initiatives for longer periods than the Russian project must also be taken into account.

2.3 The Phenomenon of Internationalization