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Researchers in higher education (HE) are a community of academics with backgrounds and experiences in a variety of scientific disciplines. For this reason, HE research is influenced by other disciplines from which HE researchers take theories, constructs and research methods. This article describes a large-scale analysis of the impact of different scientific fields on HE research. Special attention is paid to the analysis of the influences of psychology, sociology & political science, and economics as the disciplines that have the greatest impact on HE research. To assess this impact, we analyse citation patterns in seven key HE journals. Our empirical analysis confirms that HE research is indeed a multidisciplinary field and experiences a different impact of identified scientific fields for HE articles of different topics. We analyse the dynamics of such an impact and discuss the factors that may cause the growth of multidisciplinarity in HE research.

Many governments attempt to improve national higher education through the competitive support of universities. These policy approaches raise questions about the impact on the entire system--both in research and educational--of targeted support for a small number of universities. Addressing challenges in the measurement of university excellence initiatives are among the most vital topics in research evaluation due to the central roles they often play in national research and university policy efforts. Using data from the Russian University Excellence Initiative (RUEI), we measure the spillover effects of such focused support and demonstrate that a broader impact does exist. In particular, we examine the performance of higher education institutions that were not part of RUEI and were not directly supported by it. We compare the university performance in regions both with and without RUEI universities. In doing so, we measure the indirect impact of RUEI on the higher education sector at the regional level. We show a positive effect on the level of publication activity that has recently become apparent. However, there has been no effect on the share of young faculty, international collaboration in publications, or the quality of enrollment. Judging from the broader research policy\research evaluation perspective, our study sheds light on the systemic effects of excellence initiatives, which are often neglected. Besides, excellence initiatives could trigger a change in the approach to evaluating research. So government should develop measure properly, taking into account various consequences, some of which are considered in our article.

We studied the population of articles on higher education published in academic journals by researchers from post-Soviet countries in the last three decades. We found that post-Soviet countries contribute differently to the overall publication output, with only Russia, Lithuania, and Estonia having more than 100 articles in journals indexed in Scopus. Countries also have different publication profiles in terms of articles' language, topics, methodology, and the balance between articles in local and international journals. In comparison with a sample of international articles, post-Soviet authors publish a substantially smaller share of research articles, and articles about teaching and learning issues, student experience and outcomes, and academic work, but a larger share of policy-related articles and articles about system policy and history. Researchers from one post-Soviet country collaborate much less within their country compared with authors from the international sample, where people collaborate more actively between institutions within a country. At the same time, scholars from different post-Soviet countries do not collaborate with each other. Our analysis demonstrates the disunity of the community of post-Soviet scholars disconnected by national borders.

This paper studies the publication productivity of inbreds and non-inbreds among Russian academics. Existing literature provides ambiguous results on the relationship between inbred status and productivity. This may be explained by the use of different indicators for measuring publication productivity. We use data, which include indicators of both current publication productivity (at a certain point of time) and cumulative productivity (throughout the career) to identify whether inbreds and non-inbreds differ in their productivity. We did not find any difference in current publication productivity of inbreds and non-inbreds. We found, however, a difference in their cumulative publication productivity: non-inbreds are being more productive on an individual level throughout their careers. Although the conclusions are based on the Russian data, the analysis provides an explanation for existing contradictory results on the relationship between academic inbreeding and productivity in general.

We studied the population of articles on higher education published in academic journals by researchers from post-Soviet countries in the last three decades. We found that post-Soviet countries contribute differently to the overall publication output, with only Russia, Lithuania, and Estonia having more than 100 articles in journals indexed in Scopus. Countries also have different publication profiles in terms of articles' language, topics, methodology, and the balance between articles in local and international journals. In comparison with a sample of international articles, post-Soviet authors publish a substantially smaller share of research articles, and articles about teaching and learning issues, student experience and outcomes, and academic work, but a larger share of policy-related articles and articles about system policy and history. Researchers from one post-Soviet country collaborate much less within their country compared with authors from the international sample, where people collaborate more actively between institutions within a country. At the same time, scholars from different post-Soviet countries do not collaborate with each other. Our analysis demonstrates the disunity of the community of post-Soviet scholars disconnected by national borders., Author(s): Andrey Lovakov [sup.1] , Maria Yudkevich [sup.1] Author Affiliations: (1) grid.410682.9, 0000 0004 0578 2005, Center for Institutional Studies, National Research University Higher School of Economics, , 20 Myasnitskaya [...]

The literature on the consequences of academic inbreeding shows ambiguous results: some papers show that inbreeding positively influences research productivity measured by the quantity and quality of publications, while others demonstrate the opposite effect. There are contradictory results both in the studies of different countries and within countries. This variety of results makes it impossible to transfer the findings from one academic system to another, and in Russia this problem has been under-explored. This paper focuses on the relationship between inbreeding and publication activity among Russian faculty. The research was conducted using data from the "Monitoring of Educational Markets and Organizations" survey. The results show that there is no significant effect of academic inbreeding on publication productivity: no substantial and robust differences in publication activity between inbreds and non-inbreds have been found. The paper finishes with a discussion of possible explanations inherent in the Russian academic system.

Researchers in higher education (HE) are a community of academics with backgrounds and experiences in a variety of scientific disciplines. For this reason, HE research is influenced by other disciplines from which HE researchers take theories, constructs and research methods. This article describes a large‐scale analysis of the impact of different scientific fields on HE research. Special attention is paid to the analysis of the influences of psychology, sociology & political science, and economics as the disciplines that have the greatest impact on HE research. To assess this impact, we analyse citation patterns in seven key HE journals. Our empirical analysis confirms that HE research is indeed a multidisciplinary field and experiences a different impact of identified scientific fields for HE articles of different topics. We analyse the dynamics of such an impact and discuss the factors that may cause the growth of multidisciplinarity in HE research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Faculty are the main asset of a university and determine its success. The attitudes of faculty toward their institution play an especially important role in the academic profession. This study examines the specific antecedents of affective, normative and continuance commitment of faculty to their university. This study is an online survey of 317 faculty of Russian higher education institutions. The results of the regression analysis showed that being an undergraduate inbred (i.e. working at the university from which one graduated) predicted affective and normative commitment toward the university, while having a post at another higher education institution predicted only affective commitment. Faculty who work at several universities have lower levels of emotional attachment to the primary university.

This article aims to analyze the psychometric properties of the Russian version of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale (UWES-9) by using a sample of 1783 employees of a large Russian organization. We conducted a series of Confirmatory Factor Analysis (CFA) tests of the factorial structure and the configural, metric, scalar, factor variance, factor covariance, and factor means invariances of the model across gender and age groups. The validity of the Russian version of the UWES-9 was investigated by study- ing its relationship with burnout, job satisfaction, life satisfaction, and turnover inten- tion. The CFA showed that both the 1-factor and the 3-factor models of the UWES-9 fit well with the data, but the 3-factor model demonstrates a significantly better fit. however, the differences are minor; therefore, in practical terms, the models are iden- tical. Thus the Russian version of the UWES-9 can be used both as a three-scale mea- surement and as a single scale of work engagement. Results from the multi-group CFA provided evidence of factorial invariance of the 3-factor model across gender and age groups. Internal consistencies of the vigor, dedication, and absorption subscales are acceptable. The results also suggested the convergent, discriminant, and incremental validity of the UWES-9, as shown by its relationship with burnout, job satisfaction, life satisfaction, and turnover intention. The article also discusses the differences in levels of work engagement within different gender and age groups. Overall, the results show that the Russian version of the UWES-9 demonstrates acceptable psychometric properties comparable with the original version and those in other languages. The Russian version of the UWES-9 can therefore be recommended for use in research and practice.

Many governments attempt to improve national higher education through the competitive support of universities. These policy approaches raise questions about the impact on the entire system—both in research and educational—of targeted support for a small number of universities. Addressing challenges in the measurement of university excellence initiatives are among the most vital topics in research evaluation due to the central roles they often play in national research and university policy efforts. Using data from the Russian University Excellence Initiative (RUEI), we measure the spillover effects of such focused support and demonstrate that a broader impact does exist. In particular, we examine the performance of higher education institutions that were not part of RUEI and were not directly supported by it. We compare the university performance in regions both with and without RUEI universities. In doing so, we measure the indirect impact of RUEI on the higher education sector at the regional level. We show a positive effect on the level of publication activity that has recently become apparent. However, there has been no effect on the share of young faculty, international collaboration in publications, or the quality of enrollment. Judging from the broader research policy\research evaluation perspective, our study sheds light on the systemic effects of excellence initiatives, which are often neglected. Besides, excellence initiatives could trigger a change in the approach to evaluating research. So government should develop measure properly, taking into account various consequences, some of which are considered in our article. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]