In this article the key problems of personnel development in the sphere of the defense-industrial complex of the Russian Federation are treated in accordance with all participants of the development process of defense industry human resources. The system of first-priority, tactic and strategic arrangements aimed at improvement of defense industry personnel training and retraining is also provided. The concept of educational clusters is proposed as one of the directions of development of the defense-industrial personnel potential. The empirical data is obtained from MSTU “STANKIN” experience and the research carried out by Russian Engineering Union in 2012.

The paper offers a variant of implementing a competence approach within a credit-modular system of training in accordance with the Federal State Educational Standards (FSES). As an example, it presents a logical consequence of forming general cultural and professional competences in the major 270800 “Construction” through a set of academic, calendar and discipline modules. A variant of evaluating competences is offered, as well as the curriculum modular structure.

The article considers a curricula content and its role in an integration process within a scientific- educational cluster. The principles of multilevel education are defined. The interaction factors within the education levels and their influence on the integration process are reflected. The model of the education system based on the scientific-educational cluster is proposed. There is also discussed a problem of implementing the coherent curricula of participating educational institutions.

The paper presents the basic directions of modernization IGIP curriculum for training and professional development of teachers of engineering universities, which were approved at a meeting of the Executive Committee of the International Society for Engineering Education IGIP March 13,2013. We comment this modernization from the point of view of the global state of engineering education, and the features of using the updated plan in parallel with modernization of higher education in Russia.

The article is devoted to an analysis of potential of pedagogical and psychological tests used as one of the means of complex diagnostics of competence level of the students seeking for a bachelor’s degree. The article also reveals the essence of a principally new type of test aimed at checking teaching material comprehension. It also describes the results of using psychological tests to assess students’ general culture competence at Sholokhov Moscow State University for Humanities.

The article focuses on the results of the project management principles implementation in the realization of the development programs at the leading Russian universities. The experience in the sphere of scientific and educational activities management within the network of federal and national research universities is considered.

So far as pedagogy is an applied science, profile pedagogy is a «doubled» applied science. Its function is to solve some special tasks, which appear during the organization of education or training in the chosen branch of professional activity. First of all, this relates to the realization of competence approach. Characteristics and problems of medical pedagogy are examined in this article by analogy with engineering pedagogy.

The article shows that the national interests of Russia require an active policy for the development of regional universities because of their role in solving the basic problems of the country such as the consolidation and modernization of the Russian society.

The author analyses the forms and mechanisms of the determination of the scientific research activity of a regional university functioning in the multicultural society (in the Kabardino-Balkar Republic as the example). The article reveals that in contemporary science and contemporary Russia most of the problems existing in the humanities that are traditionally referred (and refer) to the “local and insignificant” ones become urgent issues of national and global importance.

The paper is devoted to a competency-based organization of university education in the country. It is shown that theoretical and methodological support of this innovative direction lags behind the needs of real practice, and this has already led to serious flaws in the federal state standards of the higher professional education of the third generation.

The problem of the development of Russian regional historiography, the role and place of the university science in its development are under discussion. The article reveals that modern Russian regional historiography requires systematic attention of Federal authorities for education and science.

The paper is focused on the significance of cross-cultural research in the context of formation of the Russian identity and the special role of regional higher school science in this field. It points the apparent inconsistency of the existing forms and levels of inter-university cooperation of humanitarian studies with the challenges of time and demands of Russia’s development towards consolidation of the society and cultural and technological ascension.

The article examines the role and forms of being of social and humanitarian science in contemporary classical university. By the example of cinema as a synthetic art it is shown how the problem of “two cultures” synthesis and the dialog of cultures can be solved.

The article contains the structural and functional analysis of the educational microenvironment at the university. By the example of the medical faculty there is shown its role in the transformation of students’ educational activities into their living space and real practice.

Our task consists in finding specific features of a social situation with Russian higher education through a certain resource of problems actualization. Namely, the substantial subjects of two full arrays of titles of the articles of the «Higher Education in Russia» journal relating to 2011 and to 2012 are considered in the comparative coordinates. The authors of these publications are mainly the teachers in higher education institutions, respectively, through the representations of this category of people it is possible to reveal the significant problems of Russian education.The title of the publication, which usually contains the keywords, can be viewed as the mostcondensed form of its summary. The analyzed sets contain, respectively, 291 and 262 single titles of publications, in these sets there were used 1728 and 1530 words, an each set contained 671 and 587«unique» words, respectively.The work was carried out with information arrays within the analytical modules of the “VEGA” computer program providing creation of databases, a set of ways of texts systematization, qualitative and quantitative analysis, convenient dictionaries. Permutation, alphabetic and frequency dictionaries were used.This work was carried out for the purpose of comparison of two «social products» - two annual information arrays of the journal titles for revealing of significant social characteristics of modern Russian education. The analysis of the themes and focuses of authors’ attention shows how an academic community treats the situation in Russian education.

The paper describes the findings of the survey of students with disabilities of Moscow schools andtheir parents conducted by the Laboratory оf monitoring studies of the Moscow State University of psychology and education in autumn 2012. It contains data identifying the demand for higher education and professional orientations (preferences in the choice of occupation, level of education and professional school for further education).

The article considers some correlations between the idea of the university and its real social functions. It also suggests some assumptions concerning the evolution of the universities in future.

The main theme of this paper is the content of professional mediation in an educational context a culturally, scientifically, and educationally diverse settings. The actor’s choice of an educational strategy is presented as a complex act of self-identification requiring appropriate support. The traditional function of educational mediation, understood as the transfer of specific orientations to the individual, is juxtaposed with an overall pattern of mediation that treats the orientation context as a matter for objectivation and selection. “Iconic transition” is considered as a model for mediation, its effectiveness is linked to the specifics of text organization. “Iconic transition” is de-objectivised and presented as an intermediate semiotic construct created within education serving to renew its functioning mode.

On March 20, 2013 a round table discussion on the theme “Postgraduate study as an education program” was held in the framework of the Third IGIP international regional conference and the annual MADI methodological seminar “Innovative pedagogical technologies in engineering education”. The organizers of the discussion were The State Technical University – MADI and the journal “Higher Education in Russia”. The participants took up the topical questions concerning thepostgraduate study in the context of forthcoming organizational reforms in higher education.

The review takes up the key issues elaborated in the monograph “Educational Institution, Power and Society in the Age of Knowledge Culture Growth” (A.O. Karpov). These key issues include: the leading role of research education in the process of the new technological setup formation; processes of knowledge culture deconstruction and the policy of education commodification, in particular; the fundamentals of cognitive and cultural polymorphism of educational systems, well-grounded by the analysis of ethno-diversification models and socio-cognitive specific features typical for the society of knowledge; paradigmatically differentiated structure of modern education. Special mention of the high significance of the material presented in the text of the monograph has been made.