Interaction of Educational Communities of Higher Education in the University Scientific Area

Abstract

The relevance of the article is predetermined by the need to find new resources for the development of the university scientific area and identify opportunities for its qualitative improvement. The purpose of the work is to determine the basis for the typology of the interaction of university educational communities and to define the basic features of the scientific concept of the organisation of the university scientific area in the Ural Federal District as a representative scientific and educational model of higher education in the macro-region. The dominant theoretical approaches are community-based, resource-based, typological approach. The object of the study is the interaction of the community of research and pedagogical staff (RPS), the student community and the community of administrative staff (AS), the subject is the resources of educational communities in universities of the macroregion. The empirical base consists of mass questionnaire regional and Russian surveys, materials of expert interviews, and statistical data. An approach to the study of RPS, AS and students as traditional, virtual, and digital communities is proposed. The analysis of the prerequisites for interaction and the specifics of each of the identified communities allowed us to reveal the most acute problems preventing their integration into the unified university scientific space of the macroregion. It is shown that the unbalanced ratio of the number of representatives of communities in general and by region of the district, and the bureaucratization of university activities have a negative impact. It is noted that contradictions in the goal-setting of communities in research activity create a situation of interpersonal disunity. The study of research practices revealed the need to formalize the status of the “personnel reserve of science”, the dissemination of innovative practices of large universities, the organization of a unified system of regional investment in student science, the inclusion of regions in the sphere of influence of world-class research and educational centers. Four groups of problem areas are identified as typological bases of scientific interaction: the number of participants in communications; the chronotopе of scientific interaction; motivation, opportunities and positions in science; the nature of interaction. The interpretation of the resource potential of the university scientific area and the communities interacting in it is proposed. The main features of the conception of the university scientific area of the macro-region as a specific social ecosystem are defined.