This study describes findings concerning social expectations held by university leaders and psychology service professionals regarding the need and efficacy of psychological support in higher education. It highlights both alignments and discrepancies in perceptions related to the impact of psychological services on achieving university objectives, demand for such aid, and psychologists’ professional skills. The alignment of the positions of “agents of influence and demand” (“supervising” and “non-supervising” vice-rectors) and “support forces” (university psychologists) was considered a necessary condition for the successful institutionalization of the psychological service as an integral part of the university structure. The sociological survey involved 241 respondents – vice-rectors supervising and not supervising the organization of psychological service, as well as heads or specialists of the psychological service – from 170 universities, which represents 38% of the target population. According to the data obtained, absolute unanimity was recorded among all respondent categories regarding the demand for psychological assistance within the higher education system. At the same time, vice-rectors express significant negative assessments of the industry competence of some psychologists and their predominant orientation toward their own professional interests. The main institutional challenges limiting the establishment of the university psychological service were identified and named as industry indifference, mismatch between competencies and tasks, absence of industry context, professional egoism and industry negativism. A conclusion is made about the critical importance of alignment between the positions of vice-rectors and psychologists for the successful institutionalization of psychological assistance within the higher education system.

This article examines the functions, affordances, and limitations of digital avatars as mediators of educational interaction and formulates the conditions for their successful integration into teaching practices. In this study, a digital avatar is defined as a visual virtual agent representing a human or artificial intelligence, capable of communication and interaction within the digital educational environment. The work is grounded in a sociotechnical approach and considers the digital avatar not only as a technological solution but also as a new actor in educational interaction. Drawing on a thematic literature review (2020–2025), analysis of EdTech company cases, and a reflexive author experiment, the study identifies key functions and constraints of avatars in education and proposes a four‑level model that integrates the technical, psycho‑pedagogical, sociocultural, and ethical dimensions of avatars’ mediating role. The findings reveal the complex sociotechnical nature of digital avatars, their pedagogical potential, and the social challenges of implementation in educational practice. The study demonstrates the potential of digital avatars to enhance short‑term learner engagement and motivation, facilitate multilingual content delivery, and reduce time spent on preparing instructional videos. It concludes that avatars should be viewed not as replacements for teachers but as powerful auxiliary tools that complement and extend their capabilities, with effectiveness contingent on the education system’s readiness for change – from thoughtful strategy design and teacher professional development to clear ethical frameworks. The conclusion outlines principles for designing and implementing digital avatars as mediators of educational interaction and suggests key directions for further research and practice.

The purpose of universities in the 21st century is not only to provide quality education and research but also to activate knowledge, teaching and practice for the public good. Models of educational institutions, built on reciprocal knowledge transfer, give way to new models that focus on transformational partnerships with social institutions and communities. This article presents an overview of the practices of leading global universities in the field of promoting psychological wellbeing. The analysis is based on publicly available data from 102 universities included in the University Impact Rankings 2024. In 97 of them, 282 practices aimed at supporting psychological well-being were identified and described. These practices cover a wide range of initiatives from clinical services to educational and social projects, and are deeply integrated into the educational and research activities of universities. The article presents the results of quantitative and qualitative analysis of four groups of practices – psychological assistance and support, information and educational projects, social initiatives and other types of well-being support, according to 127 indicators, structured by groups of organizational conditions, content and positioning of practices inside/outside the university, including invariant types (level, duration, goals, topics, attraction mechanism, awards). The results show that universities systematically contribute to improving the quality of life and solving socially significant problems of populations and university communities. When comparing foreign practices with domestic experience, differences were identified due to the commercial nature of foreign education, local rootedness of practices, greater development and diversity of practices of direct psychological support.

The article presents a review of studies in the field of Collaboration Analytics and their application to the analysis of collaborative activities in higher education. Based on a systematic search and comparison of works, key constructs of collaboration we identified – participation, coordination, and cognitive regulation – as well as approaches to their theoretical interpretation. The findings show that, in university practice, the most in-demand data include records of student activity on digital platforms (message logs, timestamps, relational links), results of content analysis of communication (discourse coding, semantic mapping), and multimodal indicators of interaction (e.g., time series of actions and distribution of roles within groups). To process these data, methods of network analysis, epistemic network analysis (ENA), machine learning, and digital trace visualization are actively employed. These approaches enable instructors to diagnose team dynamics, provide more accurate feedback, and support the development of students’ metacompetencies. As a comparative context, studies of corporate analytics were examined, which made it possible to identify models of monitoring and visualization of participants’ contributions that can potentially be transferred to the university setting. The practical significance of the results lies in providing educators and educational researchers with tools for the informed selection of analytical methods and indicators, as well as in outlining the possibilities of adapting corporate practices to university models of collaborative learning. For readers, the value of the article consists in systematizing fragmented research and identifying promising approaches that may enhance the quality of student group work and its assessment.

Solving the problems of modern Russian higher education requires the search for new methodological approaches. Such an approach can be a generational approach. One of the key issues of applying this approach in the sociology of higher education, which has not been adequately reflected in scientific literature, is the search and justification of criteria and generational boundaries of the university community.

The scientific novelty of the research consists in an attempt to study the ideas of the employees of modern Russian universities about the criteria and boundaries of generations of university communities. For the first time, a qualitative empirical study (interview) of university employees in the Ural Federal District (n=41) was conducted. It allowed us to record a wide range of quantitative (age, work experience) and qualitative (the education system in which the employee was formed; the historical period of the employee’s inclusion in the higher education system; position as a stage of mastering the content of work; attitude to digital technologies and the degree of mastery of them; initiative / knowledge and experience; flexibility and adaptability to changing external conditions, etc.) criteria for differentiating the university community. The mechanisms of self-identification of university employees with a specific generation have been identified. It has been established that the foundation that gives stability to the university is the middle generation.

The article contributes to the ongoing discussion about the generational structure of the university community by offering empirical evidence substantiating the relevance and prospects of using the generational approach in higher education. The results of the study make it possible to expand the theoretical understanding of the processes that take place in Russian higher education and to develop practical recommendations for the development of a meaningful and differentiated age policy at universities.

The article focuses on the substantiation of the directions of sovereignization of internationalization from the position of recognizing the need to include a national trend as a leading one in international higher education. The specifics of Russian internationalization practices are considered and the directions of conceptualization of Russian sovereignty strategies are fixed: the use of international educational communications as a resource of “soft power” or the rejection of neo-globalism while maintaining a response to global challenges through internal internationalization. The author substantiates the priority of conceptualization of internal internationalization over external and suggests the directions of institutional restructuring of higher education to maintain it. The article is considered sovereign internationalism in the context of the decentralization of the global space and the rejection of the unconditional acceptance of foreign institutional models in the direction of understanding the provision of their own institutional and socio-cultural foundations for the transformation of higher education. The authors believe that in the context of global turbulence, internal internationalization will allow achieving a synergistic effect from internationalization not only on national and local, but also on international tracks, and will ensure a balance between global challenges and sovereignization.

As a methodological basis for conceptualizing internal internationalization, along with the traditionally used instrumental and institutional approach, the article uses a socio-cultural approach, since sovereignty enhances the importance of the influence of the socio-cultural context on the seemingly “universal” institution of internationalization and the tools for its implementation. In order to conceptualize internal internationalization, it is proposed to consider this process in various segments of the educational space of academic and extracurricular activities involving all participants in international interaction. These spatial segments should form interconnected networks of real and virtual communicative subject-subject interactions. The necessity of developing two trajectories of competence formation for effective interaction between foreign and Russian participants in internal internationalization is emphasized – theoretical and practical. In practical terms, it is proposed to pay attention to the formation of a behavioral attitude of responsible application of theoretically mastered competencies of intercultural interaction and motivation for mutual responsibility, as well as conviction in the permissibility of other value orientations without abandoning one’s own values

The present study is devoted to a comprehensive analysis of the scientific discourse related to the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in the educational environment in the period from 2015 to 2025. The relevance of the work is due to the rapid penetration of AI technologies in the educational space, which requires systematization of knowledge about the dynamics of research trends, methodological approaches and conceptual shifts. The scientific novelty lies in the application of a combined methodology combining bibliometric analysis, latent Dirichlet placement (LDA) for topic modeling and statistical methods, which made it possible to identify the structural features of discourse and its evolution. Based on the analysis of 362 articles from the Lens database, 21 thematic areas are identified, reflecting key research focuses ranging from the implementation of AI in school education (K-12) to ethical challenges and anthropocentric models. The results show an exponential growth in publication activity, dominated by technological research, with a lack of representation of socio-humanities disciplines. Geographical analysis revealed the leadership of the USA, UK and China, which emphasizes the regional asymmetry in the study of the problem topical “AI in education”. An important conclusion is the paradigm shift in the perception of AI: from autonomous agents to tools complementing human resources, with an emphasis on the role of the educator and selective application of technologies. It is found that promising directions are shifting towards the analysis of anthropocentric models, personalization of learning and ethical aspects of generative language models. The study contributes to the understanding of structural changes in the scientific discourse of “AI in education” and to the creation of a unified logical contour of problemscalls of modern education, conditioned by the role and prospects of AI systems in education.