Contribution of higher education institutions to the development of critical technologies in the Russian Federation

Purpose: to assess the involvement of domestic universities in the critical technology development in Russia based on the analysis of the integration of scientific and educational activities and related aspects of the scientific results transfer.

Methods: the study is based on data on the publication activity of Russian universities in the RSCI core journals and the assessment of the integration of scientific results reflected in them with the basic professional educational programs (BPEP) implementation. Bibliometric analysis methods and data parsing techniques were used. Informational basis includes data from the eLIBRARY; data from the Russian universities’ official websites; QS ranking data on the Russian universities’ positions.

Results: the level of universities specialization in specific critical technologies was assessed. A statistical relationship between the university publication activity in the field of the analyzed critical technologies and their activity in implementing the corresponding BPEP was identified. The results showed a moderately positive correlation (r=0.45) between the studied parameters. Master's degree programs (r=0.51) demonstrated a stronger connection with the results of scientific activity than bachelor's degree programs (r=0.38). The clustering of universities revealed differences in the approaches of sectoral, specialized, and multidisciplinary universities to the integration of research and educational activities within the framework of the analyzed critical technologies. It was found that universities with higher levels of collaboration between publication activity and BPEP tend to have higher positions in the QS rankings.

Conclusions and Relevance: the study’s results indicate a relationship between the university publication activity in the field of critical technologies and the BPEP implementation in the same field. The nature and extent of these relationships vary depending on the BPEP level and the type of university. These results can be used for the further analysis of the mechanisms that link scientific and educational activities in higher education institutions.

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