Rationales for the Export of Higher Education by the RussianFederation: Constants and Variables

This article analyzes strategic planning in Russia’s export of higher education and the prospects for its implementation under the ongoing fragmentation of international relations. The purpose of the study is to assess how much the country’s priorities have changed in the export of higher education and how these changes affected goal setting and geographical guidelines. The article uses a multidisciplinary approach, since the problem of exporting education is at the intersection of two research areas: international relations and foreign policy and higher education and the internationalization of higher education. The empirical material of the study includes strategic documents regulating foreign policy and the export of education, documents of ministries and departments of the Russian Federation, and statistical data on the state of higher education in the Russian Federation. The authors also analyze research publications, analytical reports, and other materials on this topic. It is concluded that the export of higher education began to be considered by the Russian government as an important direction of foreign policy after the start of the sanctions regime against the Russian Federation in 2014 and the actual breakdown of institutional cooperation with western universities. The geographic reorientation of academic cooperation of the Russian Federation with non-western countries is changing the priorities of the export of education, strengthening the political component in it and pushing the declared economic component to the background. The scope of available official statistics on the real volume of funds received from the export of Russian higher education make it difficult to assess the economic efficiency of this type of Russian activity on the global market. According to the report of the Ministry of Science and Higher Education for 2023, the stated quantitative goals for the export of higher education have not been achieved, although the problems that impede it are being addressed.