Russian practices for the integration process development in higher education system

Today, development intensity and competitiveness of educationalinstitutions are mostly determined by the education, science and business integration level that ensures both high quality of professionalstaff training and conducting large-scale fundamental and applied researches along with a successful monetization of the achievedresults. In 1996, science and education integration was officially acknowledged in Russia as one of the major principles in thegovernment science policy. It included building of the holistic system to train all levels of the competent science personnel. To advanceintegration processes, the government developed the required regulatory framework and integration mechanism based on the creation ofuniversity complexes. The author has analysed the stages and structure of the institutional transformations towards integration of thescience, educational and production activity in Russia and concluded that university complexes served as a foundation for the buildingof contemporary integration structures. The author accentuates that, at the current stage of the economic development, the outstrippinglevel of personnel training that meet the economic demands (same as advancement of mechanisms designed to support fundamental andapplied science R&D in the universities at every steps of the innovation cycle) is no more sufficiently effective within the conventionalintegration forms. The level and scale of the defined goals for social and economic transformations require implementation of modern,networking integration forms that produce synergistic effect. When solving challenging tasks, the participants of such networkstransform into a new integral unity with other quality and quantity parameters and features. The domestic integration experience thatwas reviewed in this article illustrates the importance of establishing both internal and external network structures. The article provesthat a set of the key steps in the strategy of innovation-based national economy development (such as: activation of innovation activityin the public sector; encouraging business participation in the determining and financing of the priorities for the fundamental and appliedresearches in universities; education quality enhancement; developing research competencies of universities to provide basis for theexpansion of R&D) that meet business needs can be accomplished by using advanced patterns of network interaction between science,education and production subjects along with globally acknowledged and adequate administrative integration mechanisms. Based on theconducted researches, the author focuses on a number of challenges that restrain development of the integration processes in the Russianhigher education system.

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