The ASU development program is based on a territorial leadership model based on the integration of three elements: 1) Region-shaping University, holding a special place in the regional socioeconomic system, having a special impact on regional development through building up human capital, participation in national and international projects and programs, integration into the global scientific and educational space, development of humanitarian cooperation. Uniting intellectual resources, facilities and socioeconomic relations into a single whole on the basis of the university ensures the vital activity of the region, determines its socioeconomic, sociopolitical and sociocultural stability and enhances an integrative role of the region as a geostrategic border area. 2) University, having a unique top-level infrastructure, concentrating all the resource potential on the scientific frontier and using the educational, scientific, technological and innovative potential of the partner group for implementation in the educational process (academic mobility, traineeships, online courses and other forms), and offering new solutions to the issues of spatial, personnel, social and technological development on ensuring the socioeconomic growth of the region. 3) University as an infrastructure platform for developing a wide range of search activities aimed at promoting diversification of the regional economy by creating new points of growth – technological industries of the region-shaping clusters, ensuring the security of the geostrategic border area, expanding the influence in terms of the export of education through a constant influx of the active youth.
The target model will be implemented through the solution of the following tasks:
- to form a single integration environment with strategic partners that will help overcome resource limitations (including by means of the merging of Astrakhan State University of Architecture and Civil Engineering (ASUACE) and ASU), generate and disseminate innovative knowledge and breakthrough technologies;
- to shift to a practice-oriented learning model, transform educational trajectories into individual ones, expand the module of Master’s and postgraduate studies in cooperation with the leading partners;
- to update the model and pedagogical design of the main EPs, their actualization, taking into account the labor market and the emergence of new professions, based on the competence of network partnerships and interdisciplinarity;
- to implement a flexible architecture for continuing education by promoting new unique programs with a variety of training formats;
- to form ideological values in students by scaling up new pedagogical practices and introducing the opportunities for free self-determination to increase their competitiveness;
- to ensure the development of competitive scientific schools in priority areas for Astrakhan Region and the whole country;
- to develop scientific services (protection and promotion of the university’s intellectual property);
- to create a motivating environment and individualize HR development trajectories, conditions for attracting talented specialists from leading Russian and world scientific and educational centers;
- to form an efficient system of work with the youth, aimed at civil-patriotic and spiritual and moral education, to expand opportunities for self-fulfillment and develop youth entrepreneurship;
- to create an efficient digital university with the maximum coverage of the digital services on a single digital platform;
- to transform the management system into a flexible project environment, to form an adaptive organizational structure and increase the management efficiency.
The target model will be implemented in three stages: 1 (2021 – 2022): reorganization of ASU through the merging with ASUACE. 2 (2023 – 2025): strategic investment in the university – creation of the necessary infrastructure, material, technological, organizational, financial, HR and information conditions. 3 (2026 – 2030): obtaining results from the investment, aimed at strengthening the university’s position in education, research and innovation at the Russian and international levels.
Stages 1 and 2 form a basis for achieving future excellence in the selected priority areas by combining a critical mass of invited experts and infrastructure; active participation of the university in the implementation of national projects will increase.
The key characteristics of the ASU target model are: the volume of R&D per one scientific and pedagogical worker will be 225,000 RUB in 2030; the number of foreign students of the university will double and will be 4,200 persons in 2030; the share of Master’s degree students and PhD candidates will increase to 20.4%; the number of students of additional education programs (AEP) will increase 2.5 times (up to 15,000 persons in 2030), including online courses, expansion of the range of digital and the most in-demand AEPs; at least a double increase in the volume of income from the implementation of AEPs – up to 203.76 million RUB; more than 70% of the University students will be involved in volunteering; an increase in the number of publications and citation in the journals of Q1 and Q2 in Scopus and Web of Science; the employment rate of the university’s graduates will exceed 95 percent.