Internationalization in Russian universities during the pandemic of COVID‐19: Lessons for succeeding in the new reality

Abstract

The pandemic of COVID‐19 became a resilience test for internationalization in Russia and emphasized many systemic trends, both promising and concerning. The turbulence and instability during the pandemic initiated the growth of internationalization activities at the institutional level in two directions: first, it increased attention to the quality of work with current international students, including student support, adaptation issues, student engagement, and second, due to the risks in student enrolment, it brought universities to rethink their internationalization instruments and strategies for work with international applicants and future students. Indeed, the ongoing changes in global education call for reconsideration of the priorities and methods of internationalization: new forms of internationalization become widespread practices, new instruments are necessary for student recruitment, and new push and pull factors come into play. While internationalization of education in Russia during the pandemic was addressed at the national level to a degree, the universities carried out the key activities and had to come up with solutions “in the field”. The paper aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of Russia's transition through the pandemic and tackle the changes at the university level, based on a comparison of data of the survey of international departments of Russian universities conducted in 2020 and the survey of 2021, supported by semi‐structured interviews. The research offers insights on the capacity for change and resilience in Russian universities within the internationalization domain and can help to develop data‐driven approaches for improvement of organizational capacity of universities.

Internationalisation in the digital transformation: A scoping review

“…Such processes are often enacted through collaborative online international learning—COIL (also referred to as virtual collaborative learning—VCL), and recognised as an approach to implementing virtual mobility (Altmann et al., 2019; Bruhn‐Zass, 2021; Buchmüller et al., 2021; Caniglia et al., 2018; Chang & Gomes, 2022; Clauss et al., 2019; Cordova et al., 2021; Fan et al., 2021; Guimarães & Finardi, 2021; Hammond & Radjai, 2022; Jacobs et al., 2021; Kobzhev et al., 2020; Kolm et al., 2021; Lazarou & Trifan, 2018; Ndubuisi & Slotta, 2021; Pedersen et al., 2020; Stolze et al., 2021; Wimpenny et al., 2022; Woicolesco et al., 2022). Digitally assisted instruction gained prominence in the context of emergency remote learning, deployed by HEIs in response to the COVID‐19 crisis, while prompting reflections about challenges and opportunities associated with the use of digital technologies in international higher education (Abramova et al., 2021; Chang & Gomes, 2022; Cordova et al., 2021; Hurria, 2021; Kanwar & Carr, 2020; Liu & Gao, 2022; Minaeva & Taradina, 2022; Mussina et al., 2022; Perrotta, 2021; Phùng & Phan, 2021; Rizvi, 2020; Woicolesco et al., 2022; Yang et al., 2022; Zawacki‐Richter, 2021).…”

“…Studies looking into the Latin American (Cordova et al., 2021; Woicolesco et al., 2022) and Asian contexts (Gezici et al., 2021; Liu & Gao, 2022; Minaeva & Taradina, 2022; Pestereva et al., 2019) suggest that VI has spurred stronger international and interregional partnerships that can potentially drive the protagonism of Global South HEIs in the international education arena. This trend is evident in the case of the Eurasian common education space (Pestereva et al., 2019).…”

Vision for the Post-Pandemic Education in BRICS

“…As Petrova (2021) reported, the country's higher education institutions (HEIs) found themselves in an unfamiliar situation, which involved using and applying distance learning technologies. Russian higher education system counts 966 universities, excluding branch campuses and 4.7 million students (Minaeva & Taradina, 2022). By April 2020, more than 90% of Russian universities had the capacity to offer distance learning (Minaeva & Taradina, 2022).…”

“…Russian higher education system counts 966 universities, excluding branch campuses and 4.7 million students (Minaeva & Taradina, 2022). By April 2020, more than 90% of Russian universities had the capacity to offer distance learning (Minaeva & Taradina, 2022). The transformations due to the pandemic affected the entire education system at all levels, creating uncertain times, which education systems were not prepared for (Petrova, 2021).…”

“…Therefore, although the e-provision of Education allowed institutions to move forward, it was not accessible to all students (Rosa et al, 2021). In fact, all of the BRICS countries informed that transitioning to online Education created a digital divide and exacerbated inequality in Education (Bordoloi et al, 2021;Dawood & Van Wyk, 2021;Jiang et al, 2021;Minaeva & Taradina, 2022;Naidoo, 2022;Niemczyk et al, 2021). Furthermore, all BRICS countries reported that the pandemic had impacted their students' and staff's mental health and well-being (Hedding et al, 2020;Li & Che, 2022;).…”