The aim of the article is to show the necessity for the analysis and dissemination of leading universities' best practices as a means of enhancing their competitiveness and increasing the effectiveness of transformation processes in higher education. The authors describe the current situation and the experience in best practices dissemination at the international and national levels; offer a range of best practices, developed by federal universities in different areas of their activities, to be disseminated through the system of in-service training.

The article discusses how changes in the field of academic programmes administration affect other university activities. Among the key changes the authors mark out the following: shift from the chair system towards management of an academic programme; implementation of a module approach; training at the premises of resource centres providing professional field experience, as well as realization of network programmes; individualization and differentiation of educational paths; focus on an external customer of academic programmes; promotion of e-learning resources. In conclusion the influence of changes on the specific spheres of university activities is defined. These are administrative policy and human resource management, information infrastructure, material incentives for different categories of employees, as well as cooperation with employers.

We propose the concept of integrating programs of the second and third levels of higher education and creating exclusive educational systems «Academic Master's program - postgraduate school» on this basis. The purpose of such systems is to provide systematic targeted training of highly qualified experts (holders of Candidate of Sciences degree) for professional research and teaching work in higher education institutions. The programs are focused on a small number of Bachelor program graduates, who are motivated and possess cognitive and psychological qualities that allow them to prefer an academic career, given the minimum necessary conditions. We consider some organizational, structural and content features of the integrated programs, including the institutional integration of Master's and postgraduate program levels, as well as a number of issues related to the focused step-by-step development of research and teaching competencies throughout the whole «path» of preparation for the Candidate of Sciences degree. A modular structure of the educational component of the program is proposed. By using an example of the program in the area of studies «Computer Science and Computer Engineering », a curriculum option is discussed.

Functioning ofthe institute of higher education in a quickly changing external environment and the long lasting period of delivering educational service require change of approaches towards education: from reproductive to productive. This can be simplified by methods, developed today both at school and in business education. The article examines the issues that help to achieve effectiveness of educational activity: goal-setting in education, development of civic consciousness, contemporary educational technologies and teacher's competencies. Author's proposals on every issue are supported by the examples from her own experience in general and business education.

Foreign language competencies are essential for a modern researcher. Teaching academic English to PhD students in Russia currently faces significant challenges of an institutional, methodological, methodical and organizational nature. The paper summarizes the results of the discussion held within the round table "English Speaking Environment" by English language teachers and higher education specialists at the 15^th seminar-conference of the 5-100 Project in February 2016. Among the topical issues are: the absence of clearly formulated teaching aims and objectives, lack of suitably tailored syllabi and teaching materials, serious gaps in teacher training and inadequate foreign language competence of PhD applicants. Some recommendations for the optimization of this process are presented.

The article presents some results of the author's research, which combines elements of two research strategies: the desk analysis (literature and sources) and field (a poll of students of the Tatarstan Republic). The study aims at analyzing the current forms and methods to formation of students' healthy lifestyle in the framework ofthe vocational training system. The analysis revealed that in spite of the represented in the literature an abundance of techniques to spread among the students knowledge on the theory of a healthy lifestyle and increase motivation for maintaining a healthy lifestyle, there is a lack of attention to such important aspect as the development of students' self-organization skills needed for successful formation of HLS.

The article presents the organization of professional orientation work with students at the metallurgical enterprise. The results of the sociological survey conducted by the authors revealed the topical problems concerning career guidance. So, the demand for blue-collar jobs has decreased among high school graduates as well as an entrance competition in higher education institutions on specialties required in economy of the region. Young people prefer to choose professions with a broad scope of application and employment opportunities; employment in steel industry after graduating from vocational schools graduates consider as a residual. The article focuses on the measures for solution of the problem of job placement in the region. The implementation of the project technologies in particular road mapping for students' career guidance allowed us to obtain tangible results.

This article examines sociological and economic approaches to the study of career. Connection between career and social mobility is explored. According to the economic approach, job promotion of an employee is analyzed in the context of the processes of production, distribution and consumption of limited resources. Stages of professional career are analyzed in the article The summarized results of sociological studies show that the term «career» is associated in the minds of Russians with social mobility and job promotion. One aspect of the study of career, namely graduates' employment, is analyzed. Various types and typical models of career development are examined. Special attention is given to the analysis of the careers of the graduates of sociological faculties of Russian universities. In the study it has been identified three types of career of a sociology graduate: a teacher (usually at university), a scientist and researcher, and a practicing sociologist. Using the developed theory the authors give their own definition of a career as a process of successive changes in official or professional (intra- and interinstitutional) status of an individual based on the development of professional competencies, taking into account his personal interests and needs of organization.

The article continues the series of the author's publications on the topic of higher school ethos. The author considers the elite corps of professors to be an intellectual reserve of Russia. This paper proposes an option of choice of the actual pattern characteristics of higher school professors, which are considered within a multi-dimensional model of a professor; it includes the psychological hierarchy of needs, the national higher school modernization plans and examples of financial incentives.

It is commonly recognized that after the departure of the infamous "philosophers' steamer" in 1922, Russia inexorably declined into an epoch of "philosophical silence" due to the dictatorship of the Marxist-Leninist ideology, which forbade any kind of a diverging worldview. It is assumed that no original or significant ideas could have been expressed within that period of history. The author disputes the general thesis that there was no philosophy within the Soviet Russia. In 1960-1970s there appeared philosophical circles, informal leaders, the original research programmes and theoretical conceptions, and the most important - the genuine schools of philosophical thinking. The geography of the well-known "home seminars" is rather diverse: Moscow, Rostov-on-Don, Novosibirsk, Minsk. These groups and unions were not institutionalized, and their members had no social privileges. It can be said that there appeared an original sociocultural phenomenon - soviet philosophical "underground". The paper analyzes the motives and behavioral patterns of the youth involved in such activity in such format. Special attention is paid to the activities of the Moscow Methodological Circle created by Georgy Shchedrovitsky. Shchedrovitsky's seminars were aimed at reflection the means of thinking and embodied the idea that thinking is a collective effect.

The paper highlights the Rector's experience in implementation of social and technological approach to management the processes of creation and development of a modern university. Figures and facts show the dynamics of its transformation from the provincial teacher training college to on one the leading national research universities. The applied approach included the participatory process, incorporation of human resources, development of the new forms of administration and management using the effective methods of social motivation. The keystone to success is a strict succession of the stages of the whole social and technological cycle implementation, coherent functioning of all subsystems, and a high accuracy of an every operation and action.

The article overviews Voronezh State University's activity in 2015, analyzes the factors shaping the university's development and achievements. It also analyzes the university's traditions and the "Line of development" enabling to keep its leadership in the region.

This article contains information about the educational activities of Voronezh State University in 2015, the university achievements in the range of educational and methodical work, new educational programs, scholarship programs for students and graduate students.

The article analyzes the trends and mechanisms of interaction between businesses and Voronezh State University. It also presents good practices of implementation of joint projects in the sphere of high-tech industries and in-service training of engineers and technical staff.

The article focuses on the problem of academic staff management at classical university. The causes of the negative trends in the staffing of universities are explored and ways to overcome them are also suggested. The use of empirical data allows the author to trace the influence of innovative activity on decrease in the outflow of young scholars and professors and on the rejuvenation of the teaching staff. Using the specific university as an example, the author considers the implementation process of such innovative form of human resources strategy as a creative approach to decision-making on staffing issues.

The article analyzes the program-oriented and goal-oriented approach used to enhance Voronezh State University's advanced world-class level research and development and faster growth of human resource capacity and the university facilities. It also reviews the processes of information technologies introduction into the main fields of the university activities. Additionally, it discusses research support mechanisms and the university target programme results.

The article reviews military education formation and development in a non-military university by the example of Voronezh State University. It analyzes the educational activity and specialist training quality provided by the Military Training Centre over a certain period. The authors also discuss the legal and regulatory framework applied in this field.

The article analyzes the importance of international cooperation in higher education on the example of Voronezh State University. One of the university's goals in the sphere of international relations is to develop and introduce innovative academic programmes in cooperation with leading international partner universities. The University pays special attention to the development of academic mobility and student and faculty exchange programs. Voronezh State University has over 158 partnership agreements with the leading universities all over the world.

This article analyzes the organization of student affairs, social development and students' extracurricular activities of Voronezh State University, and particularly focuses on the development of students' self-government. The article shows examples of successful projects related to the activities of student organizations. One of the indicators of effective work in this area is the sustained support of the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation within the Programme for Student Community Development.

The article considers the grounding of the leading role of reflection in competitive specialist development and the characteristics of reflexive environment development at technical university by means of humanities. The results of a survey based on the interview with Omsk State Technical University teachers and students concerning teaching humanities at technical university are given. Most students find studying humanities necessary, though sometimes they are not interested because of only traditional teaching methods and teachers' neglecting the potential of ICT and interactive methods of self-education. The prospects of the research are seen as an implementation of various reflexive technologies in technical university activities with the aim to form a reflexive component of a future specialist professional competence.

The article is aimed at analyzing the new federal standard of higher education in comparison with the preceding federal standard of the 3^rd generation. The article includes a detailed analysis of the problems related to the nature of the standard and to the wording of competencies. These problems give rise to a large variety of interpretations of competencies in curricular programmes and other documents. The analysis showed that new standard of higher education presents no clear definition of competency and the suggested lists of competencies are formed without any argumentation. The new standard does not consider the conclusions of the international project TUNING Russia aimed at implementation of competency-based approach in national systems of higher education. As a possible solution to the defined problems the author suggests to invite employers, alumni and university staff to examine standards of higher education. But today the problems defined by the analysis that are identical to the problems of the preceding standard do not allow to consider the new standard of higher education to be an efficient instrument of implementation of the competency-based approach.

The article addresses the problems relating to the use of the alternative periodic tables of chemical elements in studying of various chemical disciplines. The versions concerned are the so-called «short-form" table proposed by Dmitri Mendeleev and «long-periodic table » proposed by A. Werner and recommended by the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC). The advantages and disadvantages both of these variants have been shown. It has been noted that now in the Russian chemical education it is mainly used a "short-periodical» version. The author proposes a modification of the table version of the periodic table of chemical elements designed to overcome the disadvantages of the two most common variants now interpreting the periodic law of Dmitri Mendeleev, which may be used in the educational process.