‘A Great Academic Holiday’: XIII International Conference on Higher Education Held at HSE University
The event’s main theme is ‘New Educational Outcomes for Well-being and Success’. This year, the XIII International Conference on Higher Education was held together with the Second All-Russian Conference on Individual Educational Trajectories. For three days, researchers discussed the latest challenges in education, including the field of strengthening Russia's technological sovereignty.
In his opening speech, HSE Rector Nikita Anisimov said that the event has been held annually for 13 years. The conference brings together the best researchers in the field of higher education, including international ones.
The rector added that everything that is being implemented in education should be based on research, and not only on life experience, and since higher schools work with young people, the benefits of implementing evidence-based, informed decisions will be revealed only after 20–30 years. ‘We call our university “the Higher School of Everything”. We are shaping the economy of tomorrow through our students. We can do this more effectively by relying on research in education,’ said Nikita Anisimov.
The rector added that the Second Conference on Individual Educational Trajectories is no less important, since ‘everything we do makes a person, a student, the centre of attention.’ Individual educational trajectories demonstrate attention to the student as an independent person important to the economy of tomorrow.
Deputy Minister of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation Andrey Omelchuk stressed that education should not be linear and uniform; even students in the same group may have different tracks. Individual educational trajectories are necessary in ensuring that students are in demand after graduation, and that their competencies meet the expectations of employers.
Students of Russian universities can master several qualifications, added the deputy minister. He highlighted the ‘Digital Departments’ project, which was launched this year by the Ministry of Education and Science and the Ministry of Finance of Russia. The project helps students to obtain additional qualifications in the field of IT.
Vladimir Rakhteenko, CEO of CUSTIS, presented the technological aspect of the discourse at the conference: ‘An individual educational trajectory is a suite of technologies that helps us to create a future out of the boldest ideas. We will tell you how to change education—why it is difficult, but very interesting and effective.’
The speaker noted that people study for two purposes—personal development and professionalisation—and that only a developed person can change his or her profession if necessary. He added that the suite of technologies for the individualisation of education is interesting only when the university declares the goals it strives to achieve. Otherwise, individual technologies are useless.
Evgeniy Terentev, Director of the HSE Institute of Education, said that the conference was not limited to the framework of the official programme, and wished its participants to enjoy not only the reports, speeches and discussions, but also informal communication.
‘It is significant that we started the conference with a small local community, and now 700 people are participating in it. It is important for us to strengthen discussions with research results, and I hope that we will be able to discuss not only specific articles, but also possible solutions,’ added Terentev.
Maria Yudkevich, Director of the HSE Centre for Institutional Studies and one of the key organisers of the conference, called it ‘our great academic holiday’ and recalled that one of its traditions is forming a community. ‘Thirteen years ago, the conference was established as a platform where researchers of higher education could meet, find like-minded people, collaborators, people close to them in ideas and spirit. We successfully solve this task, and I hope this year is no exception,’ she stressed.
The combination of offline and online tools was applied not only to the organisation of the conference, but also to its content. This year, a significant part of the programme was dedicated to the influence of ‘digitalisation’ on the structure, standards, and content of higher education.
‘Our conference, as well as higher education research, looks ahead. We don’t just study how the young personnel market works, we don’t just discuss how to invite young people and create conditions for them in science, but we also actively involve young colleagues in this activity,’ says Maria Yudkevich.
A symposium meeting of young researchers of higher education dedicated to the memory of Dmitry Semenov, Head of the Laboratory for University Development at the HSE Institute of Education, who tragically died in 2017, took place as part of the conference.
The conference topics included universal competencies as new educational outcomes, an evaluation of new educational outcomes in universities, big data in managing higher education, professionals in academia and evaluating the effectiveness of research results, and others.
Nikita Anisimov
HSE University Rector
Evgeniy Terentev
Director, Institute of Education
Maria M. Yudkevich
Director, Center for Institutional Studies