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Federal Research University

M.Kh.Salakhov

Kazan State University

18, Kremlyovskaya Str., Kazan, 420008, Russia

rector@ksu.ru

The idea of federal research university and its criteria, special structure and education as well as the problem of management and legal rules was a question for discussion in academic circles in the middle of the 1990s. That was an attempt to find one of the ways for education and science modernization in conditions of changes of the Russian society and transmission to new political and economical relations. In the process of the discussion the idea of a research university was linked with the idea of the "leading university", and it was clear why such things happened. In highly developed countries, where the term "a research university", connected with researches and education, is widely used, elite universities represent themselves first of all as research ones, where education is closely connected with scientific investigations within a broad ramified multi-level system of communications.

It is significant that in the USA, where formalized criteria, known as "Carnegie classification", are used for gradation of higher-educational institutions, the highest of six categories, usually universities and colleges are divided into, coincides with a research university (1). In Japan, the country of advanced technologies, there are 700 universities, but only 70 of them have the official national status. The most important determinant of being in the "premier league" is pronounced and effective research work, which results in notable achievements. In our country by the way, classical universities, both the oldest ones and those founded in the XX century, play the similar role in the system of education, and the high level of their educational process is based on scientific, first of all fundamental and searching, investigations.

Although in the 1990s the institutions responsible for scientific-and-technological development failed to coordinate their positions on realizing the idea of a research university, the idea itself was being in use among experts, administration of higher education establishments, scientists and lecturers. A new impulse for the concept promotion to the sphere of investigations was conveyed by Research-and-Educational Centers in a number of leading universities of Russia established on the basis of the contest program, which had been worked out by the American Civil Rights Development Foundation (CRDF) together with our administrative educational institutions.

The program greatly concerns Kazan University, one of the leading classical cites of learning in Russia. The university has won grants for creation of a Research-and-Educational Center (REC). REC-007 "Materials and Technologies of the XXI Century" formed in KSU, is to train highly professional specialists of quite a new type, able to solve problems of high technologies in closely-related fields of physics and chemistry, biology and material studies. REC was organized on the basis of the faculties of physics and chemistry of the Kazan State University owing to wide integration of the Kazan Scientific Center institutes of the Russian Academy of Sciences including Institute of Organic and Physical Chemistry, Kazan Physical Technology Institute, Kazan Institute of Biophysics and Biology as well as the university departments of Microbiology and Applied Mathematics.

Finally the newly established Ministry of Education and Science of Russia, aimed at integration of science and education, raised a question of a research university as a form of close interaction between universities, academic research institutes and state scientific centers as one of the ways for solving the problems of the research-and-educational reform being realized in the country. Modernization of the intellectual sphere, which implies both science and the system of education, is a pressing need of the time. Nowadays one realizes clearly, that a serious drawback of the Russian system of higher education and scientific investigations is their disconnection, which became an obstacle to further building up the intellectual potential of the country.

Intellectual sphere of Russia includes about three thousand institutions and design offices. Among them there are 460 scientific institutions belonging to different sections and regional branches of Russian Academy of Sciences, six state academies and also almost 7 million lecturers and students. While in the USSR there were 190 students per 10,000 people at present there are about 300 students in Russia, but the export of industrial innovations is only 6%. According to the following figures the decline in intellectual potential is the most disturbing. In 1989 the intellectual potential index in the USSR was 0,71, coming to 0,47 in 1997 and being less than 0,4 at the beginning of this century. The tendency is quite obvious.

Financial problems including those of university science are certainly the first reason one pays attention to. Only 38% of all higher institutions have funds for investigations and only one fifth of the lecturers are involved in research work. But this serious question is not the only one. The situation with scientific investigations and developments was not changed greatly by increased expenses on science of the last years. During the period from 1990 to 2004 financing was four times as much, i.e. more than 46 milliard rubles by the beginning of this year (2005). At present science financing is a priority line as there is a schedule of budget allocations extension approved by the government. Their relative growth outruns not only inflation but also the expansion of budget expenses. Unfortunately money is often spent irrationally.

It is clear, that main problems are caused not only by poor financing, but also by the necessity of better organizing of the science-and-education system. The practice shows, that scientific output is proportional only to the logarithm of financial resources allocations and directly proportional to effective science organizing. Nowadays the task, connected with development of effective scientific policy and mechanisms of its realization is of primary importance. Specialists in science studies pay their attention to the role of the state system and significance of its actions for scientific sphere, as there is no effective demand for science unlike other spheres of social life and culture. Even in the USA, the country of highly developed science-intensive production, expenses for fundamental and major applied researches are an exclusive obligation of the state. Some of our scientists and publicists complain of the fact, that only 6% of all science-and-technological developments in Russia are carried out by private companies, while the main volume of such developments are based on private capital in the developed countries. However, they don't take into account that private industrial capital in the world countries and in the USA in our case, finances mainly applied researches and development activity, while spending twice more money than the federal budget for research and development.

Modernization of science and education in order to provide knowledge economy in Russia, which brings in from 40% to 70% of increase in the national income in every developed country, is a mutual process. It demands concerted actions of both the academic sector of science and the system of science and education. Certainly, these tasks can be performed only on the basis of consistent and weighted policy. It should define the aims and main principles, time and mechanisms of modernization of intellectual sphere in order to save and develop a competitive system of knowledge reproduction as a precondition for development acceleration of economy and society. The priority task of the state policy is to get rid of artificial organizational and legal barriers between fundamental science and education, the two systems, which are a single whole. The existence of such barriers poses an obstacle for using results of fundamental research in education, and on the other hand, prevents young specialists and university scientists from doing scientific researches.

At present the idea of a "research university" blends with further integration of science and higher education, establishment and support of integrated structures of science and education, university and interuniversity complexes, research-and-production centers, search and introduction of optimal integration forms for academic sector of science with the leading Russian universities. Now the outlines of science-and-education integration are becoming obvious. The forms of such integration will be partner departments of leading universities in academic higher education establishments, research universities or university science-and-research centers, special laboratories or students' design offices. Taking into account the significance of the research university project for modernization of science and education, it is sensible to get down to its origin and compare its principles and idea with the character and level of "your" university. It is obvious, that the concept of a "research university" is a big problem, connected with the character of development as a type of educational establishment and special social practice. Properly speaking, the Humboldt idea of classical university of the New Time, which replaced the image of a medieval university (theological or scholastic university), was based on the integration of educational process and fundamental scientific researches. In a sense it is the very idea of a research university, which main functions are knowledge production, their accumulation and storage, knowledge transmission and distribution. Main principles of the university are academic freedom, priority attention to the development of scientific investigations and training of elite researchers.

Further development of European universities was based on these principles. Nowadays, in conditions of the global market and information society, they apply to a new method of university organizing, which meets the requirements of the time. Such a university is often called an "entrepreneur's" one, emphasizing a special role, played by greater diversity of financial resources and the development of all-embracing entrepreneur culture connected with the latter. The new European "entrepreneur" and "innovative" establishment is the very type of a research university, adapted to the conditions of up-to-date technologies and labor market, which is proved by the main characteristic features of a contemporary European university. They are multi-level education, fundamental and applied scientific investigations, as well as solution of regional economic and socio-cultural problems.

Although the University of a New Type as a research one firstly appeared in Europe, the research universities have been mostly developed across the Ocean. By the year of 2000 there were about 260 similar educational establishments in the USA, while 70 in Germany, 73 in Great Britain (including 30 polytechnic schools of university status), 41 in Spain, etc. Traditions of the research university in the United States were established by B. Franklin, the outstanding politician, scientist and enlightener, who founded the University of Pennsylvania and was one of the first honorary members of the St. Petersburg Academy of Science. Having his own scientific and educational experience, he paid his attention to the fact, that science and education enrich and give energy to each other. Nowadays there are universities in many American states, which provide the main cash inflow to local budget, connected with new technologies. According to the data given at the Russian-American Conference "Research Universities" in April 2004 in the Presidium of Academy of Science Russia, the state support of researches in the universities of the USA is growing from year to year. Partly it also concerns Russian universities. Since 1992 the total sum of the USA government support to Russian science and education exceeded 500 million dollars; 130 partnership projects were realized.

Meanwhile the situation with our education and science became different from that of the North-Atlantic countries for a few historical reasons. As we know, one of the peculiarities of Enlightenment, beginning with the epoch of Peter I implied separation of science and education. However, one shouldn't exaggerate the scale of enlightenment of that time. The outstanding authoritative physician Pirogov, who supervised scientists' training in Russia, wrote that as for science "there were no differences between academy and university. Those, who were in the avant-garde of science, taught students. Education was adapted to science, but not to teaching". More over, there was a single hierarchic system of educated class from a university graduate to academician. It was quite natural that at the turn of the XIX-XX centuries a term close in meaning to a "research university" appeared in Russia. The question is about the so-called "Russian method of training engineers", notable for a deep theoretical studying of engineer projects.

It is significant, that professors of the Kazan University, the first in Russian province, had contacts with the biggest scientific societies of Europe, such as Astronomy and Asian societies in Paris, the Royal Society in London, Academy of Sciences in Berlin, Brussels, Lisbon and other cities. These deep-rooted research traditions of the Kazan University continued to support fundamental science during the Soviet period, when the development of a university sector of science faced both pecuniary and juridical difficulties. Even in severe conditions of the Great Patriotic war the university authorities and its staff tried to maintain it as a classical educational establishment, distinguished by scientific investigation and scientific education. In 1943 professors N. G. Chetayev and B. A. Arbuzov were elected to the "big" Academy. A geologist Ye. I. Tikhvinskaya was the first woman of the university who got Doctor's degree. In 1944 Ye. K. Zavoisky opened the phenomenon of electronic paramagnetic resonance. Other scientific schools were developed at the university.

War in general gives paradoxically strong impulses to the development of science and technology, also because of concomitant recombination of scientific structures and forces. Many academic institutions, evacuated from Moscow and Leningrad to Kazan in 1941, turned our city into a unique place of active interaction of "academic" and "university" science and its intensive integration with educational process.

As a matter of fact, the organizational model formed de facto, was a basis for relations of our university with a regional branch of the Academy of Sciences of Russia established in Kazan. Its first leader was Alexander Arbuzov, professor of Kazan State University, who never lost contact with this cite of learning. The leading university scientists K. M. Mushtari, L. M. Miropolsky, N. L. Livanov, M. Kh. Gainullin and A. A. Trufanov headed the branch departments and the Presidium. A single whole of "university" and "academic" science was also demonstrated by scientific work of Boris Arbuzov, N.G.Chebotaryov, Ye.K.Zavoisky, G.S.Vozdvizhensky, P.M.Tikhonov and many others.

KSU links with academic institutes of the Kazan Scientific Center became an integral part of science and education in our city and republic. One can mention the treaty on scientific and technological cooperation between KSU and the Kazan Branch of Academy of Sciences. Signed in 1987, it played a positive role in increased efficiency of scientific researches and drew the Academy scientists in training highly professional specialists. Forms of KSU interaction with the Regional (Kazan) Academic Center, now headed by academician A. I. Konovalov, the rector of Kazan University from 1979 to 1990, are different. KSU and KSC participate together in the Federal Purpose-Oriented Program "Integration of Science and Higher Education in Russia" as well as in the work of "Educational and Scientific Center for Training Highly Qualified Specialists on Priority Scientific Trends, Developed by the Leading Schools of KSU and KSC". The results of scientific collaboration demonstrate advantages of cooperative work within "Kazan Educational and Scientific Center of Natural Sciences". KSU partner departments, opened at academic institutes, have been working fruitfully. Among them there are the departments of supra-molecular chemistry, chemical physics and physical-and-chemical biology. In their turn the leading scientists of KSC head a number of the university departments. Laboratories and equipments of academy institutes are widely used in the educational process. More than 50 KSC staff members give lectures to undergraduates and graduates and more than 100 students are studied at partner departments. But all mentioned above doesn't exhaust the principles and character of interaction of scientific and educational systems in our city and the republic.

Thus, the historical experience of Kazan University proves the idea of a famous researcher V. A. Pokrovsky, who specializes in organizing science and education. Speaking about the problem of research universities, he said: "Juridical term a "research university" doesn't exist in Russia. But in fact there are several big universities in Russia, doing for the definition. Among them there are the Moscow State University named after M. V. Lomonosov, St. Petersburg University, Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology, Kazan University and others. Each of them has a few research institutes and closely collaborates with them" (2).

Actually those forms of contemporary integration of science and education are getting rights, which have already been accepted as tendencies in MSU, St. Petersburg, Kazan, Rostov, Novosibirsk Academic Campus and other scientific and educational centers. But it wouldn't be quite correct to exaggerate the scale of science and education integration even in those not numerous scientific and educational centers where such processes were rather strong, including without any doubt the city of Kazan and Kazan University. The experience of the last decades when the idea of university was strongly altered could not disappear completely. In higher education the accent was put on a narrow specialization according to models of the "system of artificial stability" used in the XIX century. Creation of special higher educational establishments was mainly based on destruction of infrastructure of classical universities and even the necessity of university education was called in question.

With the beginning of a "reversed" reorganization of university in our country under the influence of economic and social demands, one couldn't come back to a completely research type of university. More over, the state support of fundamental scientific researches was mainly realized through the system of academies of sciences, but its interaction with the system of universities was quite limited. It became a drag on the way of scientific and technological, social and cultural development of Russia, being especially obvious in conditions of society and economy transmission. It is also clear that Russian universities don't have rich experience in strategic planning of their activity, which is usual for European research (innovative) universities. As a matter of fact it is a business plan, which implies certain resources, their order and measures for achieving the goals of university development. Meanwhile it is the contemporary research university, which is able to blend with the new organizational and economic conditions, can be a worthy partner in the integration process of science and education.

The criteria system of federal research university developed by scientists and specialists from the Tomsk State University is worth speaking about. In 2004 the all-Russia seminar titled "Federal Research University. Working out the Criteria and Legal Rules" was held there. Except Tomsk University the seminar organizers were a Ministry and National Center for Specialists' Training.

Choosing the main criteria of the federal research university scientists assumed as a basis the term "criterion", which has two interconnected meanings: 1) a characteristic feature, which is the basis for assessment, the definition or classification of something; 2) measure of assessment.

In this sense a general criterion assessment of the federal research university at the first stage implies the choice of characteristic features. Then a certain system of indexes is formed. They can be formalized, expressed in numbers, or can get a qualitative (or expert) assessment. The developers of the system explain that numerical parameters depend on outer conditions, such as the expected number of such universities, size of financing, etc.

The problem of a research university, worked out by scientists form Tomsk, is based on the analysis of the purpose-oriented program "Integration" accepted in the region, aimed at stimulating collaboration between academic institutes and higher education establishments. The Tomsk University and a number of academic research institutes developed the project of "Academic University" scientific-and-educational center. This project, which has been realizing since the second half of the 1990s, was included in the "Integration" program mentioned above. A peculiarity of the Tomsk scientific-and-research center is the fact that academic structures initially appeared on the basis of the leading schools of higher education and fundamental science and in their turn greatly influenced the trends and principles of specialists training later on. New departments of the Tomsk Scientific Center of Russian Academy of Sciences (Siberian Branch) were opened at the university after academic institutes had been established or during this process. Now the departments have branches at the academic institutes. Short-term tasks of the "Academic University" project included organizing and supporting the historically formed system of interaction between academic institutions of Siberian Branches of Russian Academy of Sciences and Russian Medical Academy of Sciences and the Tomsk State University. Long-term tasks of the project consisted in putting into practice the model of stable system interaction between academic institutes and Tomsk University, directed towards common scientific researches and training elite scientists, lecturers and technologists.

Thirteen centers for fundamental researches and elite education were established within the "Academic University" in order to solve the problems of science development and training specialists of the highest qualification. Owing to the established centers not institutions (subdivisions), but scientific and educational schools were integrated, i.e. the integration, figuratively speaking, has not a "bureaucratic" but "creatively rich and substantial" character. "Academic University" had to solve the problems, which more or less concerned other scientific-and-educational centers, i. e. to oppose progressive deterioration of pupils' knowledge of physics, mathematics and natural science. That was a reason for applying to forms and methods of early training and career guidance of school-leavers, represented as a system of pre-university education. It goes without saying that in this case the main result of the "Academic University" project implementation is the development of organizationally stable system of interaction between university and academic institutes.

Ideas of up-to-date integration of science and education are implemented in St. Petersburg, where Academic Physical Technology University of Russian Academy of Sciences was founded on the basis of A. F. Ioffe Physical Technology Institute. Integration processes are going on in the Western Siberia. From the very beginning it was close collaboration between the Novosibirsk State University and institutes of Siberian Branch of Russian Academy of Science. The process is going on. The birthday of the Research Educational Center for Humanities and Social Sciences was celebrated in early spring of 2005. Being an independent legal entity, the center got an official approval as a research university. Scientific councils of academic institutes of Psychology, Philosophy, and Sociology, as well as the Institute of the USA and Canada and others are united with the councils of the REC for Humanities and Social Science departments, which are situated on their territory. Graduate and postgraduate studies, which imply getting the bachelor's and master's degrees and the system of post-university education are also united. It is one of the possible ways of integration as students are taught at the research centers.

Another, perhaps, even more promising way for the development of a research university with educational and research components combined has been experienced in countries of the West. The ratio between them, for instance, in the USA is 60 to 40 in researches favor. In general the Kazan University is leveled at this model, supporting the idea of a research university in a present situation. In spring 2005 a round-table discussion, dedicated to the problem of a research university in the system of contemporary Russian education, was held within the "Open University: Kazan, 2004-2005" project, developed by the Strategic Research Center of the Volga Federal District together with Kazan State University. The university officials and scientists from different departments, faculties and structural subdivisions took part in the discussion as experts, who had a deep knowledge of the problem.

Speaking about the professional attitude to the idea of a research university, participants of the round table came to conclusion that every country has its own specific structures within the model of a research university. For example, the so-called schools of research pupils have been established in the USA. Perhaps, we should use something from their experience. For instance, we may introduce the status of a "research student" for talented persons really involved in scientific process. It will promote not only younger generation upbringing but also personality socialization. In Germany, for example, they form institutes of student leaders (the so-called groups of "rector's reserve"). There is an opinion that a research university stimulates the most important quality of student's personality, encouraging critical self-reflecting thinking.

Nevertheless, the discussion revealed troubles of scientists and specialists, who deal with future realizing the idea of a research university, as only 2,85 milliard rubles are given for all university science every year. It is less than the sum budgeted for financing the Novosibirsk Center of Russian Academy of Sciences. The question under discussion, which stirs various circles of university representatives, concerns risks and expectations connected with participation of the Russian system of higher education in the Bologna process. According to the requirements of the Bologna movement post graduate studies should pay more attention to education, while in our country an acute problem for a post-graduate student is to write a qualification paper in time.

In whole the analysis of the Kazan University situation proves that it answers the major criteria of a research university. KSU includes 17 faculties, 4 institutes, branches in Zelenodolsk and Naberezhnye Chelny cities, a number of auxiliary units (preliminary department, educational center of additional studies and so on) and general departments. More than 17000 students are studying at the university. Research departments and educational centers are represented by two research institutes (N. G. Chebotaryov Mechanics and Mathematics Institute and Butlerov Institute of Chemistry). Besides, the research-and-educational structure of Kazan University includes the Botanic Garden, a big number of research laboratories, techno-park, Astronomic Observatory named after V. P. Engelhard, Observatory in Turkey, etc. The information support is provided by a unique academic library named after N. I. Lobachevsky, which enumerates about 5 million units, Internet Center and rich computing machinery centers. The KSU structure also implies socially-oriented departments and public organizations. In particular there are 7 museums, a publishing center, center of investments and innovations and so on.

Students and graduates are intensively involved in research work. A lot is being done to develop a system of open or postal tuition (the university course first of all, but also pre- and post university studies), based on the up-to-date information technologies. Multimedia complexes on different subjects are developed for different educational establishments to provide information methods of correspondence training. The advanced learning in KSU implies post graduate studies in 77 specialties and PhD graduate school in 11 specialties; there are 21 scientific councils for getting Doctor of Science degree and 7 scientific councils for getting Candidate of Science degree on 39 specialties. Research work in the KSU is being done on 421 subjects within 40 scientific trends.

KSU has international contacts with more than 40 universities from 20 countries all over the world. Such partnership implies joint research projects, traineeship, and exchange of professors, scientists, post-graduates and students. The average number of foreign grants and projects of KSU comes to 40-45 with total financing of about $ 2,000,000. The major part of this money is spent on academic mobility of the staff members and approximately 20% go towards equipment, books and expendable materials.

One of the characteristic features of a research university is integration of researches and educational process on all levels of training (university course, graduate and post-graduate studies, PhD graduate school, retraining, and advanced traineeship) and infrastructure of advanced training (by the way, this items are the main criteria of a research university suggested by specialists including those from Tomsk). KSU also provides an integral education in natural sciences and humanities: a pedagogical traineeship for mathematics, a new candidate exam on Philosophy and History of Science, newly introduced course of Innovations Management and so on, but there is a lot of work to do to set a harmonious system.

Nowadays taking into account foreign models and being guided by our own traditions it would be advisable to concentrate on three interconnected types of activity, namely educational, scientific and innovative, while developing the structure of a federal research university. When speaking about the key principles of a research university, one should emphasize a special value of effective business connections and commercialization of research output, implemented in circum-university space as well as creation of open educational space (i.e. integration of science and education) on the regional level.

Understanding the idea of a research university in such a way one can conventionally subdivide its structure into two parts - educational-and-research departments and research-and-production departments of innovative character. In their turn the establishment of educational-and-research innovation complex on the basis of the university presupposes that the university structure will also include regionally significant research institutes, commercial educational centers, research-and production enterprises, and other organizations. All their property partly or completely will belong to a higher educational establishment and the process of education is attended by researches, technological design, financing, and production.

In whole a research university can be represented as a vertically integrated research-and-educational unit, which is formed on the basis if a classical university with new distinctive features: multi-subject character; wide system-based involvement of students in researches; applied/innovative character of investigations. Traditional Russian educational and research departments, such as faculties, faculty-institutes, research institutes, problem laboratories, educational-and-research centers and others should be the basis of the educational-and-research innovative complexes. The novelty here is greatly stipulated by a new kind of interaction of these structures with each other alongside outer and interuniversity innovative units. As for the purely educational structures it is a question of their course program renewal. Research departments are to change the direction of investigations and development activity.

Proceeding form the fact that a research university is inevitably based on establishment of research institutes integrated for education, a few years ago we began to experiment with this model on the chemical sector of KSU. The faculty of chemistry and Butlerov Chemical Research Institute were united as a single institute-department. At present, although preliminarily, one can mention positive results of this step. We have some ideas how to use the approaches of this model to intensify the effectiveness of a mathematic disciplines series at the university. We suppose that if scientists and lecturers understand that one can rely on "additional non-linear effects", speaking in scientific terms, one can work in the direction with much confidence, thus, strengthening positions of our university as the core of an integrated REC of future