Internationalization of the University

Abstract

These days, universities acquire a reputation appearing on international rankings such as THE and QS. Innopolis is in the process of entering such rankings. In this chapter, we discuss how this challenge should be attacked and how the related processes should be organized in order to achieve the result. We also present some of the early successes of the university in this area. The chapter also analyzes the role of international conferences in achieving global reputation.

These days, universities acquire a reputation appearing on international rankings such as THE and QS. Innopolis is in the process of entering such rankings. In this chapter, we discuss how this challenge should be attacked and how the related processes should be organized in order to achieve the result. We also present some of the early successes of the university in this area. The chapter also analyzes the role of international conferences in achieving global reputation.

1 Internationalization and Globalization

Although the terms “internationalization” and “globalization” appear to be linked, they should not be used interchangeably. The former is defined as a process that “involves increasing the range of international activities within universities and between universities and other educational institutions and the numbers of international students and academic staff” [12], whereas the latter is defined as “trends of increasing international interdependence and growth of cross-border activities”.

Globalization is pressuring universities around the world to reinvent themselves and implement transformative institutional changes that will serve as a “foundation for a balanced and integrated university experience at the interface of global and local exposure” [6]. Internationalization’s transformative institutional changes are frequently seen as a tool to acquire a competitive advantage on international markets, as well as to internationalize university’s current practices and strategies [12].

2 The Ecosystem

The phenomenon of globalization leads these days to the creation of an unified educational space and market dominated by international rankings. Universities compete for internationalization with associated risks and benefits [7]. Russian education has a recognized reputation around the world, especially in fundamental science, which presents itself as a good selling point on international market. In 2012, the Russian government proclaimed “internationalization” to be one of the major objectives of higher education development.¹ To support the idea, the government launched a so-called “5top100” project,² which is aimed at “maximizing the competitive position of a group of leading Russian universities in the global research and education market”. To put it in a simpler way, a group of leading Russian universities started to receive additional funding in order to facilitate their international attributes, particularly, increase positions held by this group of universities in the world university rankings (QS, Times Higher Education, Academic Ranking of World Universities).

Innopolis University (IU) is a young and ambitious university in Tatarstan in the Russian Federation, which has a strong focus on education and scientific research in the field of IT and Robotics [9]. It is located in the newly created Innopolis city (near the capital city Kazan) which also comprises ICT companies and the Innopolis Special Economic Zone. Innopolis aims to be the major Russian IT hub. In its development, the university was trying to follow the main trends of IT education borrowed from the world’s leading higher education institutions. One of these trends was and still is internationalization. Since the very foundation, the university tried to hunt international faculty members as well as attracting international students. Additionally, the university has been developing various international initiatives including summer schools, exchange programs, conferences, etc. Existing for 10 years, the university succeeded in creating an international environment on campus.

3 Internationalization Strategy of IU

From the first step, IU showed its internationalization invitations. In December 2012, just few days after its creation, the university concluded an agreement with the Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). Under the agreement, the sides agreed to transfer a master’s degree program on Software Engineering from CMU to IU. In spite of the fact that IU transferred its first educational program from CMU, IU always took as a role model a slightly different type of higher education institutes, i.e., young technical universities. The best examples worldwide are KAIST (South Korea), the IT University of Copenhagen (Denmark), and the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (Hong Kong).

Innopolis University believes that internationalization will help in achieving the following goals:

• Improvement of educational and research quality;

• Focus on innovative and emerging technologies (i.e., improved “Agile” software development);

• Inclusion in many core courses of “real-life”-style production cycle exercises including a final product delivery (i.e., course projects);

• Competitiveness of IU’s graduates and research results in international academic and IT market;

• Guaranteeing to IU a place as an equal participant of international cooperation.

To achieve these aims, IU set its main directions of internationalization that have been developed for the last 5 years:

• Recruitment of foreign students and faculty members;

• Employment of foreign faculty members;

• a scheme of visiting professorship from foreign institution;

• Mobility programs (student exchange; Erasmus+ ; research internships; joint PhD supervision);

• International olympiads and competitions;

• International conferences;

• Joint research and publications.

Despite the fact that IU is not part of 5top100 project, it does not mean that it has ignored world university rankings. In fact, IU valued them high and believed they potentially might help with the following issues:

• proving IU’s academic and employment reputation;

• raise awareness about IU and Innopolis projects;

• requirement of international students;

• requirement of international faculty

For a young university, entrance into rankings is a fascinating challenge, and IU already makes its first positive steps in rankings. In 2018, it entered Round University Ranking,³ where it reached a high score in internationalization indicators. It received maximum possible points for “Share of international co-authored papers” becoming the best result among Russian universities.⁴ Additionally, Round University Ranking has a ranking table evaluating universities according “International Diversity”, where IU came the second best among all Russian universities with only Lomonosov Moscow State University ahead. This particular ranking includes the following indicators: Share of international academic staff, Share of international students, Share of international co-authored papers, Reputation outside region, and International level.⁵

In order to develop contacts with key universities, an uncountable number of teleconferences and numerous business trips have been conducted to those partner universities that were considered strategical. Figure 9.1 shows the official business trip to the University of Luxembourg in April 2019, while Fig. 9.2 depicts the students fair we attended in the same city in November. The photo in Fig. 9.3 shows a business dinner during the visit to Windesheim University of Applied Sciences (with Iouri Kotorov, head of International Affairs in 2018–2020).

Fig. 9.1

Official visit to the University of Luxembourg in April 2019

Fig. 9.2

Participation to the students fair of the University of Luxembourg in November 2019

Fig. 9.3

A business dinner in October 2019, Zwolle in the Netherlands

4 The International Conferences

Innopolis University organized a number of international conferences in order to get more visibility. Here we will just present some for which we were directly involved and are aware of the details. Of course, other colleagues organized other equally successful events. For example, at the end of the section, we will mention the experience of the Robotics Institute.

4.1 The 10th International Ershov Informatics Conference (PSI 2015)

The first of all the conferences in the timeline was the 10th International Ershov Informatics Conference (PSI 2015). PSI conference is one of the most significant computer science conferences in Russia.

The event featured David Parnas⁶ as a keynote speaker. Parnas is pioneer of software engineering. His concept of information hiding in modular programming is an essential element of object-oriented programming.

The conference organization took 1 year, and it was not easy to make it happen given a lot of uncertainty and complicated logistics. It finally happened.

4.2 TOOLS 50+ 1: 2019

The TOOLS conference series is a long-running conferences on object technology, component-based development, model-based development, and other advanced software technologies. The name originally stood for “Technology of Object-Oriented Languages and Systems” although later it was usually no longer expanded, the conference being known simply as “the TOOLS conference”. The conferences ran from 1988 to 2012 and were finally revived in 2019 in Innopolis under the name TOOLS 50+ 1 on October 15 to 17, 2019. Figure 9.4 shows the social event of the conference.

Fig. 9.4

Social dinner of TOOLS 50+ 1

4.3 OSS 2020

The goal of the International Conference on Open Source Systems (OSS) is to be a holistic forum on Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) aimed across people from widely diverse backgrounds.

The edition 2020 was planned to be held at Innopolis University from May 12 to 14, 2020. Due to travel restriction amid the pandemic, the event was fully moved online.

The focus of the 2020 edition covered two major aspects:

• 1. The development of Free/Libre Open Source Systems and the underlying technical, social, and economic issue;

• 2. The adoption of FLOSS solutions and the implications of such adoption both in the public and in the private sector.

The fact that the event was run online helped even further in the dissemination of the concept and the visibility of the university.

4.4 Events in the Field of Robotics

The Robotics Institute has been very active since the early days in the organization of events. Notably the “Nonlinearity, Information and Robotics” conference was organized in 2020⁷ and 2021,⁸ and there are plans for the edition of 2022. The conference proceedings, indexed by Scopus, are published by IEEE.

Besides the conferences, a significant number of summer and project schools have been hosted by Innopolis University:

• Double Summer School on Collaborative Robotics and Software Engineering, August 6–19, 2018

• International Project School on Self-Driving Vehicles, April 6–13, 2019

• Double Summer School “Robot’s Cognition, Perception and Control”, June 10–23, 2019

• Summer School on Machine Learning in Robotics, December 7–10, 2020⁹