This article analyzes and summarizes the opinions and assessments of experts in the field of higher education regarding the new model of training and certification of academic staff in the postgraduate school. Particular attention is given to the target functions of postgraduate school and to the improving its efficiency. We substantiate the approach to implementation of the postgraduate school’s main functions, which is focused on the market of highly intellectual labor, including its academic segment. It is shown that due to the expansion of the range of graduates’ professional trajectories, it is necessary to create dedicated postgraduate programs whose contents should be coordinated with specific employers. While an academic degree is an appropriate evidence of professional qualification for postgraduate students who are planning to pursue a career in the field of science and higher education, for those outside the academic market it is advisable to use a system for assessment of professional competencies and achievements that involves the award of professional degrees (e.g., in the field of public administration, management and business, education). The reasons are considered for the relatively low efficiency of postgraduate education as an institution with regard to reproduction of HR potential of science and higher education, which is its main function. Some measures aimed at improving the efficiency of academic postgraduate programs are also discussed. 

The reform of the Russian scientific training system started in 2013. It was planned to decrease the number of dissertation councils and theses on the humanities, social and economic fields. Four years have passed. Have the number and the structure of awarded doctoral degrees change for this time: by the federal regions and cities of Russia, by the scientific fields and by the types of organizations? The author has tried to give answers to this question. The data for this analysis was taken from abstracts of doctoral theses awarded in 2010 and 2015, which was posted on the website of the Higher Attestation Commission (HAC). 

The purpose of the article is to ground the necessity and possibility of changes in Russian higher education as a result of the transformation of the age structure of one of the key educational communities – students. The subject of the study is the phenomenon of «growing up» of Russian students arising out of the including the representatives of the «third» age in practices of higher education. One of the tasks for educational researchers is to predict the possible consequences of this phenomenon for higher education and elaborate the elements of the nonlinearity of higher education that meet the identified trends. The empirical basis for the article was the data obtained by the authors in the study of the temporal behavior strategies of representatives of the «third» age, as well as higher education practices in Russia and abroad, respond to the challenges of nonlinear changes in educational communities. 

Newly established academic writing centers in leading Russian universities have to respond to both institutional and methodological challenges. At the core of these challenges is a lack of awareness among the Russian scholarly community of academic writing as a separate branch of scientific and methodological knowledge in addition to insufficient number of specialists, inadequate training and rare publications in this field. Founded in 2016, the Russian Writing Centers Consortium (WRCC) aims to provide networking and professional development opportunities to writing center professionals. The article highlights aims and objectives of the Consortium, describes first steps towards their implementation and the prospects for further development of the organization. 

The article reflects the experience of the work organization that is aimed at development of academic communication skills at Samara University. The authors highlighted and described the necessary pedagogic conditions that were applied by creation of Samara Academic Consultancy Center based on Modern Languages and Professional Communication department, Samara University. The authors paid special attention to the mission of the center, its objectives, and principles of work and activity of the organization. Moreover, the article shows the schedule of academic skills development for each university level (bachelors, masters, postgraduate students and teaching staff) that was developed by the tutors of Samara Academic Consultancy Center. 

The issue discussed in the article concerns the attitude to the heritage of the Soviet pedagogue A.S. Makarenko. The paper states the idea of inaccessibility of this heritage to direct perception, which determines the reception of Makarenko’s experience as an issue of reading and interpretation. There are described three reconstructive strategies of this tradition, as well as the repercussions of their implementation for the current education and culture. The authors discover the connection of the reconstruction strategies with ideology, the authorities’ relationships, and the political project approved with the help of the strategies’ mediation. 

The paper analyzes the conception of the development of education in the Humanities in the theory of the famous American philosopher Martha C. Nussbaum. According to her approach, modern education in the humanities on all the levels up to the university level must be based on skills of critical thinking. The “Socratic thinking” is represented as the basis for critical thinking as well as for development of modern democracy. This idea contains the confusion of notions and terms, thus assimilates Ancient Greek democracy and nowadays democracy, “humanities” and “humanism”; it is showed that such terms are not applicable to the conditions of modern society; all that leads to the conclusion on the utopian nature of the project. 

The article considers integrating flip teaching into language learning. The purpose of this study is to generalize the practical experience on using flip teaching at a non-linguistic university. To evaluate the effectiveness of “flipped classroom” model the following criteria have been adopted: students’ time spent on homework, students’ time spent on speech activity in class, the number of hours spent on studying the topic. The analysis of the data indicates that integrating flip teaching into students’ independent work helps them to devote more time to their homework assignments, shortens the time spent on studying the topic, enhances their motivation in learning a foreign language and improves communicative skills. 

The paper addresses some vital problems relating to students’ socialization in learning a foreign language at different levels. The authors substantiate the demand for creating an educational environment as integration of teaching, bringing up and socialization as a means of creating student’s cognitive abilities and responsible social conduct. Some examples of successful socio-cultural projects, from the authors’ own experience, are given. 

The quality of graduates’ training is often criticized by employers. A graduate of higher education system has a choice of the further professional trajectory but does not understand how to use it when he enters the labor market. We believe that the reason for that is the lack of attention to the problems of professional socialization during the education period. In this context, there is a need to create conditions for implementation by students of dialectic synthesis of socialization and individualization in relation to solving the problems of constructing a career path. The article proposes to connect the solution of the indicated problems with the passing by students the procedures of self-determination regarding the types of the mastered activities according to the requirements of educational programs. The article reveals the complexity of the implementation of the proposed process and explains the need for its implementation to achieve graduates’ competitiveness as the predicted educational result.

The article reveals the potential of the Ukhta State Technical University as a center of innovative technological and social development of the region. The authors shows how the university has been converted in an operational model of innovation economy. The university structure includes the university complex, technopark, and territorial cluster. 

The article considers the interaction of general and higher education with partner companies in formation of profile classes as a factor of successful training of workers and engineering personnel. The authors analyze the experience of interaction with LLC “Gazprom transgaz Ukhta” in the implementation of the project “Gazprom-class”. 

The article considers the basic positions of the target model of the development of Ukhta State Technical University for the period up to 2025, outlines the strategic initiatives that contribute to the status of a University as “the space of innovation”. The author emphasizes the role of the third stage of higher education (post-graduate) and teaching schools in generating innovative activity of the University. 

The article highlights the aspects of University branding, presents the activities of Ukhta State Technical University aimed at internationalization of education and promotion of USTU brand in the near and far abroad. Special attention is paid to the Arctic vector of University development and oil and gas dominant as the components of the brand potential of USTU. 

The article explores the function of the concept “outstanding personality” in the realization of the educational potential of the University internal environment, identified in the article with the educational environment. The concept of educational environment in turn is considered as equivalent to the concept of organizational culture of an educational institution. The personalities of Pitirim Sorokin and Lev Karsavin are closely associated with the history of Komi Region and their heritage falls into a context of the mission and educational environment of Ukhta State Technical University. 

The article analyzes the possibilities of systematization of educational work on formation of axiological competences of future engineers in the context of the strategy of the University development as a center of educational-scientific, innovative, technological and social development of the region. The axiological competencies facilitate formation of a future engineer as a professional who has made a conscious choice. Ukhta State Technical University practices a unique model for psychological adaptation of students to organizational structure of potential employers. One of its main principles is creation of training situations which enable students to focus of their professionally important features and values and to stir up their professional reflexion. 

The different possibilities of delivery the educational information raise the new questions to the educational community. Among them not only the question concerning the creating of modern interactive technologies ‘student-teacher’ but also the question about the appropriate delivery forms that could be used for the educational information and would activate students’ cognitive processes. The most attention should be paid to the information on the screen because the way of thinking and methods that students use to read are changing. So, in this work the existing rules of delivering information are considered as well as the regularities of perception on-screen information. A list of ergonomic rules based on the analyzed material is suggested. The friendly E-environment created with using of these rules would contribute to the improvement of the students’ overall performance in working with texts. 

This work critically examines the applicability of scientometric indicators (such as H-Index) that are widely used in basic science for evaluation research results in technical sciences. The purpose of this article is to show the specificity of the object and the targets of engineering research. The author strongly argues that it is erroneous to evaluate the effectiveness of a technical researcher according to his publication activity. The paper substantiates the necessity of taking into account the volume of anticipated or already implemented applications of these results for the objective assessment of research and researchers in technical sciences. The number of publications and references has only a subsidiary importance as opposed to the implementation of the results. The author comes to a conclusion that there are no reliable, simple and convenient indices for assessment the research results in technical sciences, and to present day expert evaluation continues to be the most effective tool.