Flagship Universities’ Personnel Potential Development Mechanisms In Russia

The article reviews the research on flagship universities’ personnel potential development mechanisms. The purpose of this review is to classify the forms, methods, and tools for the human resources development in flagship universities, as well as to assess the effectiveness of mechanisms for the human resources development with the help of 2016–2018 monitoring data of the universities effectiveness. According to the results of the study, the flagship universities’ development programs have been designed to present such forms of human resources development as developing effective contract systems, involving young scientific and pedagogical workers, improving continuous education systems, forming a personnel reserve, maintaining highly qualified personnel potential, and increasing the universities’ attractiveness as places of career development. These forms are implemented through methods and tools that are both invariant and specific. As for the end of 2017, there is no noticeable increase in the share of flagship universities’ teachers younger than 40, the arrays of values of this indicator being poorly correlated with the arrays of values of other important indicators. The authors’ study does not claim to be a complete description of the whole group of potential reference universities, as it covers the winners of 2015 and 2017 competitions. However, the research makes it possible to generate the basic directions of personnel potential development mechanisms efficiency increase in flagship universities. The problem of improving the mechanisms of flagship universities’ human resources development is solved by identifying best practices in forming mechanisms for the human resources development in flagship universities and by approaching to assessing their effectiveness in the context of different groups of these universities. This makes the article original and brand-new. The practical significance of the study lies in the methodological potential of the proposed classifications of forms, methods and tools for the development of flagship universities’ human resources, these classifications to be used in the practice of regional universities without special status. The article attempts at generalizing approaches to the human resources development of the universities in this country and at distinguishing on this basis certain ways to improve the effectiveness of HR-management mechanisms. It may be of interest to researchers of university governance mechanisms in the context of university development programs.