Article
The determinants of faculty pay in Russian universities: incentive contracts
This paper evaluates the design of current contractual incentive mechanisms in Russian universities after recent significant contractual reforms in the national academic sector. We employ the theoretical framework of incentive contracts in order to identify and assess performance measures of university faculty determining the total income received from teaching, research and administrative duties. We show that for the entire sample, faculty salary is positively associated with publication activity. Teaching is significant only for the entire sample, but not significant for research-oriented universities and HEIs with no special status. Administrative duties (expressed in the position held) are positively related to faculty pay: the largest effect is for rectors and vice-rectors, but for deans and heads of departments or laboratories the effect is also strong. Heads of universities and structural units receive a significant bonus for their administrative position. For research-oriented universities the largest effect in publication activity is for the number of papers in high ranking journals. In universities with no research status we discovered a significant gender gap: the male faculty earn more than their female colleagues. There is a positive linear relationship between salary and seniority for the entire sample and in universities with no special status.
In this paper we study the influence of academic and administrative contracts on the quality of hiring in the case when the choice of an academic position is a strategic one for a professor. Successful functioning of a university requires effective hiring. Since the talent of candidates at academic market is often unobservable for the university executive, the hiring is delegated to those who are better informed. Usually the most informed agents are heads of departments. In some universities such administrative positions are permanent, while in others universities there is a regular rotation. Moreover in higher education both short term academic contracts and tenure contracts are present. Using a game theoretical model we study the emergence of moral hazard in hiring under different contract systems. We show that professors with low level of academic talent do not want to risk their career in case of a short academic term contract. Use of a short term administrative contract in this case negatively affects their stimulus for hiring more talented candidates, hence, the development of university is hindered. It is shown that both tenure contract and long term administrative contact without a right of termination permit to mitigate this problem and result in hiring of more talented candidates. The constructed model provides a possible explanation for rotation of heads of department in some universities and for existence of practically permanent heads of department in other universities
This short paper is aimed at demonstrating that the economic logic inherent in the new model of academic contract collides with the collective structure of academic organizations in Russia. The paper is based on the results of in-depth interviews with top-level administrators and academic leaders gathered in 2013 at eight state universities located in three federal districts (Central, Southern, Siberian). While examining the process of reform implementation, we also focused on various interpretations of “academic money” (money circulating in the higher education environment). As long as material rewards were considered as instruments for performance management inside the academia, the price and value of academic work among university staff was also questioned.
Global university rankings have become an increasingly influential tool for measuring and verifying academic excellence. Today, it is hard to find a country where higher education policy and leading universities totally ignore the issue of global competitiveness and rankings as public measures of academic quality. The persuasiveness of global rankings has challenged national perceptions about higher education development and involved governments and hundreds of universities in the so-called “ranking game” (Hazelkorn, 2014; Kehm, 2014). At the same time, we can observe different reactions by universities whose institutional strategies were imposed by the fact of being ranked. These reactions concern not only changes in external images and institutional strategies, but also internal changes of formal structures and identities (Gioia, Thomas, Clark, & Chittipeddi, 1994; Espeland & Sauder, 2007; Sauder & Espeland, 2009; Colyvas, 2012). Furthermore, the reactions differ not only between universities of high and low ranks (Hazelkorn, 2007), but also between universities embedded in different academic systems. Following Clark (1983) and Maassen (1996), it can be argued that institutional context—which consists of elements related to disciplinary culture, the academic profession, and political culture—determines the different reaction by universities to global rankings.
In this chapter, we present the case of a university that has recently entered the race for global academic excellence. Our analysis addresses two important issues. We demonstrate how an abstract idea of global rankings is translated into practice in a university embedded in a specific institutional context. We also show how coupling between academic and administrative structures is organized under the pressure of global rankings.
The volume contains papers presented at an international colloquium " Russian-French links in biology and medicine" hosted by the St. Petersburg branch of the S.I. Vavilov Institute for the History of Science and Technology at the Russian Academy of Sciences on September 13-14, 2011. The colloquium covered a wide range of subjects on the Russian-French links in biology and medicine ranging from the early 19th until the late 20th centuries. Particular attention was given to the history of Soviet-French and Russian-French cooperation in neurophysiology, physiology, applied biology, microbiology, ecology and genetics. A number of papers was devoted to those Russian biologisrs who carried out their research in France; these papers focused on such issues as the changing institutional frameworks of academic contacts between the two countries, the impact exercised by Russian biology upon French scholarship, transfer and reception of scientific knowledge in various subfields of biology and medicine, and changing state policies on international academic contacts and cooperation.
Students' internet usage attracts the attention of many researchers in different countries. Differences in internet penetration in diverse countries lead us to ask about the interaction of medium and culture in this process. In this paper we present an analysis based on a sample of 825 students from 18 Russian universities and discuss findings on particularities of students' ICT usage. On the background of the findings of the study, based on data collected in 2008-2009 year during a project "A сross-cultural study of the new learning culture formation in Germany and Russia", we discuss the problem of plagiarism in Russia, the availability of ICT features in Russian universities and an evaluation of the attractiveness of different categories of ICT usage and gender specifics in the use of ICT.
The paper examines the structure, governance, and balance sheets of state-controlled banks in Russia, which accounted for over 55 percent of the total assets in the country's banking system in early 2012. The author offers a credible estimate of the size of the country's state banking sector by including banks that are indirectly owned by public organizations. Contrary to some predictions based on the theoretical literature on economic transition, he explains the relatively high profitability and efficiency of Russian state-controlled banks by pointing to their competitive position in such functions as acquisition and disposal of assets on behalf of the government. Also suggested in the paper is a different way of looking at market concentration in Russia (by consolidating the market shares of core state-controlled banks), which produces a picture of a more concentrated market than officially reported. Lastly, one of the author's interesting conclusions is that China provides a better benchmark than the formerly centrally planned economies of Central and Eastern Europe by which to assess the viability of state ownership of banks in Russia and to evaluate the country's banking sector.
The paper examines the principles for the supervision of financial conglomerates proposed by BCBS in the consultative document published in December 2011. Moreover, the article proposes a number of suggestions worked out by the authors within the HSE research team.