Diversity integration on the basis of development values

Nowadays the search for effective and harmonious activity model remains the main challenge for each university in the process of its development. The article analyses the experience of implementing different stages of transforming organizational model of UrFU activities. UrFU is a member of 5-100 project which is aimed at strengthening competitive position of a group of leading Russian universities at the global educational services and research programs market. Ideas forming the basis of UrFU organizational model transformation are widely discussed at other leading Russian universities. University experience presented in the article demonstrates step by step implementation of activity model transformation and allows for assessing complexity and diversity of approaches to changing activity model. Experience and original solutions used in the transformation of UrFU organizational activity model demonstrate new organizational development trend for the university describing ways of forming and developing management system. Any university starting a search for new activity model must follow its own path as copying ready solutions without considering individual peculiarities cannot give guaranteed quality results. Ural Federal University was formed by merging two strong Ural universities: Ural State Technical University (USTU UPI) and classical university Ural State University (USU). Starting from its first year the university with all its diversity of schools, chairs, faculties, different traditions and cultures started implementing and ambitious development program. It required the implementation of the first stage of activity transformation: integration of two universities' activities and creation of new management system (Ð 010-Ð 013.). It included changes in the shape of basic academic structures and formation of absolutely new management system providing development program implementation in a complex territorially spread university. The main characteristics of this stage are: - creation of a new organizational structure of merged university and formation of new level of basic activities, first of all in the form of new academic units institutes with a set of new tasks (15 institutes instead of 30 faculties), nomination of a managerial level with a new set of ambitious tasks in the field of university development; - creation of overall activity processes alongside with educational activities modernization. Successful implementation of this stage is proved by the fact that university has taken leading positions in terms of quality and quantity in the Ural region leaving other competitors far behind and achieved all the performance criteria in terms of development. The main event finalizing this stage was UrFU participation on the competitive basis in the team of leading universities working on a project aimed at upgrading international competitiveness. However the success at this stage did not guarantee problem free implementation of the next stages. The second stage of university transformation: academic activities efficacy growth (Ð 013-Ð 015) This stage was aimed at creating a foundation for transition to research and innovation based university. As growth potential is limited because of merger and process improvement university needs to find new mechanisms. New aspect of the second stage was formation of growth points in the form of excellence centers (competence centers). Competitive procedure helped to identify academic teams with high activity potential and create 7Ð competence centers of different scale. Working on the basis of project principles competence centers got broad powers to form organizational structure, project team and budget. The third stage of university transformation: transition to education model based on research and innovation and move to international markets required and will keep requiring speeding up the changes in activity modification (Ð 015-Ð 018). Having reached certain progress in developing academic and research activities (including 30-40 % annual increase of publication activity) during the implementation of the second stage university has depleted further growth potential. The speed of development was insufficient for achieving new ambitious goals stated by the university. There was an urgent need to find and introduce absolutely new activity mechanisms. This called for the third stage of university transformation. Its main peculiarity was the university activity orientation towards changes allowing for implementing university mission on a new level and providing balanced development of educational, academic and innovation processes in order to develop modern competitive educational programs. The third stage requires the following changes: - educational process modernization aimed at implementation of student individual learning trajectories, broad introduction of e-learning technologies, the use of independent study results control system; - development of project environment for academic, research, engineering and technical activities supporting implementation of multidisciplinary projects and transfer of academic knowledge into the teaching process; - decrease of organizational barriers between academic teams structured according to topical areas; - formulating tasks and KPI at each level of teaching and academic process; - the use of new collegial management forms Planning the outcomes of the third stage of university transformation one can speak of the fact that organizational structure diversity and differentiation of managerial approaches at the university allow for obtaining maximum performance efficacy. The ideal combination of existing diversity and overall principles is vitally important. University transformation suggests changes in activity standards all over the university irrespective of the process development stage and topical area. University case demonstrates that large university is a complex organizational structure and in order to manage it effectively one needs to find and use different activity models. University development in general or development of individual activities can go with different speed. This fact requires the use of effective management system allowing for transforming university organizational model and providing necessary development speed in the context of limited resources. Each university chooses the most effective way of implementing activity changes. Diversity of such transformation models at different stages of university strategic development demonstrates a broad complex of different tasks facing each university aspirin for leading positions in the Russian educational system. Experience described in the article is of interest to academic community of the leading Russian universities. This is proven by the fact that leading universities are engaged in active exchange of experience and study of international universities' best practices building their own experience of internal changes implementation. This article can be particularly important for new type of universities - regional universities. In 2016 Russian Federation government has decided to form 11 regional universities that would implement their own strategy and activity model. New approaches in university transformation models, accumulating best practices can be a topic for future research and expert discussion with the aim of further implementation of successful models.