The authors dwell upon the main aspects of the development of doctoral training programs in Russia. Major trends of these programs are defined by the new federal law «On Education in the Russian Federation». The new generation of documents on the implementation of doctoral programs will ensure the conditions for high-quality preparation of scientific and pedagogical staff.

The article presents the concept of the development of an innovative university strategy. It is illustrated by the example of the strategy adopted by Lobachevsky State University of Nizhni Novgorod – National Research University. The experience in collective discussion and adoption of the strategy in a large multidisciplinary classical university is analyzed. The adopted strategy became a fundamental part of UNN successful application for the Leading University International Competitiveness Enhancement Program.

The article presents the experience of research and education center founded on the base ofState Technical University – MADI to improve the educational process in technical higher school taking into account the best international and domestic engineering and pedagogical practice.

In the past decade, rankings have become significant tools for improving the quality of teaching,learning, and research, and also important vehicles for promoting competitiveness of higher education institutions (HEIs) in the global educational markets. This paper shows the performance in the webometric ranking by a selection of Belarusian higher education institutions of six different profiles (classical, education, medical, technical, agricultural, and economics), and compares this to the performance of comparable HEIs of similar profiles in the CIS. A list of the top ten HEIs in the CIS is presented, along with the positions in the webometric ranking of various institutions worldwide among the top one hundred HEIs grouped by profile. The positions of the CIS institutions are highlighted in these listings.

Taking recent international university ranking trends into account, an analysis of requirements to a ranking system for Russian higher educational institutions was conducted. These requirements were considered in the context of the increase of the competitiveness of Russian universities while retaining the national identity of higher education.

The author analyzes the advantages and shortcomings of the models of “classical”, “research” and “entrepreneurial” university and offers the unique conception of a creative and innovative university that transforms the world. The author argues that this model is an adequate response to the challenges of the new era of economics of knowledge and of creative and innovative competences.

The article focuses on the main elements of PSLU e-environment, describes the activities of the Research and education center for IT-culture and innovations in informatization of Pyatigorsk State Linguistic University.

Within the context of discussion a topical problem concerning modernization of a system of faculty certification the article presents the experience of Pyatigorsk State Linguistic University. The ways of interaction between the university administration and thesis committees, measures for raising the quality of pedagogical and psychological theses, and for raising the efficiency and transparency of thesis committees activities are viewed.

The article describes the essence of notions «innovation», «innovative university» and characterizes the place that informatization takes in the development of a modern innovative university.

This paper is the first one from the coming soon articles with a description of the results and findings of the project “Tuning of educational structures”. The article highlights the main goals and results of the project “Tuning Russia” conducted in Russia in the period of 2010–2013. Special attention is paid to the basic approaches of the drafting the Reference points of the educational programs in different subject areas. Some findings from the survey of the opinion of academy, alumni, students and employers on the importance and achieved level of the professional competencies in Economics are given. The paper describes several kinds of activities to be done by the Tuning centers were established in 13 Russian universities participated in the project “Tuning Russia”.

The article studies organizational and pedagogical problems of sinologists training at institutions of higher education in Russia. The definition of higher sinological linguistic education is given, also the main educational programs of higher professional education in this sphere are determined, an analysis of the main organizational and pedagogical problems of sinologists training is made in the article. The ways to solve the above-mentioned problems on the federal and regional levels are offered.

The mathematical model of centralized testing on the base of the Internet FEPO is described. It is shown that the test results depend not only on the level of students preparation, but also on the number of didactic units in the training course. The authors draw a conclusion of non-optimality of the system of Internet-based testing and substantiate the need to move away from the requirements of mastering all didactic course units.

Physical education as a component of an education system reveals its educative, health-improving, economic and cultural value. It promotes the appearance of such social trends as physical training movement, i.e. joint activities of people to use, distribute and enhance the values of physical culture. Control of the physical training system is a complex process that requires the choice of the best strategy and tactics, effective methods for forming healthy lifestyle. The article describes the main elements of physical training system applied at Siberian Institute of Management Branch of the RANEPA.

The article is devoted to the phenomenon of competitive resource for a university graduate. The pedagogical and sociological aspects of its formation in the regional university complex are presented. On the basis of factor analysis the opinions of various stakeholders on the significant competitive advantages of graduates on the regional labor market are explored. As a pedagogical tool to create student’s competitive resource at Orenburg State University was developed a special program, including employment training courses, sports and context games, corporate health groups, special skills raising courses for teachers, curators, and elective disciplines for masters of pedagogy.

The article sheds light upon Academic Writing Center, an educational project launched at the Higher School of Economics in September 2011. The author briefly mentions the center’s objectives, explores the programs offered for potential students and unveils the questions of recruitment, timing and strategic planning. At the end some statistics is given.

The author refers to teaching academic writing to PhD students at the University of Chicago, USA. The experience is regarded from the point of view of the ‘local’, nationally accepted attitudes and requirements, and the possibilities of applying these attitudes and requirements to the Russian higher education, which could help internationalize the learning environment in this country.

The author describes the experience accumulated by the Interdisciplinary Department of English, MSSES, in creating the innovative Western-type academic environment and its further development into an academic center focused on academic writing. She analyses the ways in which the Western model of academic writing could be applied to the Russian learning environment, and offers a concept of creating academic writing centers in Russian universities.

The principle cultural contexts are considered, which are necessary to be taken into account in order to create “the single textbook of history”. There should be included such things as commemorative practices, historical memory, scientific rationality. The clear understanding of their borders and forms of their representation in the historical textbooks is needed.

The paper focuses on the topical problems of teaching history and the standards of historical education in higher school and ponders over the role of historical component in training specialist of different spheres. These problems are treated through the prism of formation of creative intellectual environments.

The article suggests developed on the basis of the federal state education standards cross-cutting themes and problem-chronological modules to ensure continuity in studying the economic university disciplines as «History» and «Economic history». The authors dwell upon the interdisciplinary links and interactive forms of training taking into account the competence-based approach and psychological and age-related peculiarities of modern students.

The article presents an experience of studying the subject “Ethics and Axiology of Science” by post-graduate students of SibSTU. The moral choice as a classical subject of ethics is considered in the light of practical and applied aspects. Stakeholder analysis acting as a technique for unpacking cases is applied for the solution of ethical dilemmas in the sphere of science.