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The working hypothesis of the paper is that modern universities are peculiar for low sustainability to the changes of external environment due to low effectiveness of applied approaches to the diversification of their activities. The purpose of this paper is to verify the offered hypothesis by the example of modern Russia and develop an innovational approach to the diversification of modern university’s activities on the basis of remote education, which has to expand the possibilities of modern universities in the sphere of diversification of their activities.

This research is based on the hypothetical and deductive principles with application of the method of trend analysis, which allows studying dynamics of the number of universities in modern Russia; method of classification, which allows distinguishing the main approaches to the diversification of modern university’s activities; method of comparative analysis, which allows comparing these approaches and determining their advantages and drawbacks; method of statistical analysis, which allows evaluating the effectiveness of these approaches; method of analysis of causal connections, which allows determining the logic of this innovational approach to the diversification of modern university’s activities and determining its advantages as compared to existing approaches; method of modeling the state and development of socio-economic systems. The information and evidential basis of the research are statistical materials of the Federal State Statistics Service and the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation. The research covers the time interval of 2005/2006–2016/2017.

It is substantiated that remote education opens additional possibilities in the sphere of diversification of modern university’s activities. The developed and presented innovational approach to the diversification of modern university’s activities on the basis of remote education is peculiar for higher effectiveness – as compared to the existing approaches – due to such advantages of remote education as minimum expenditures of labor and financial resources, potential large volume of market and obtaining advantages from “scale effect.”

The unique peculiarity and originality of the offered approach consist in the fact that remote education, which is a direction of diversification of university’s activities, is not an alternative but addition to the main educational services that are provided in the traditional form. Due to this, university enters a new market segment and strengthens its positions in the current market segment, which doubles its effect by increasing the sustainability of market positions of university.

This paper investigates how organisations are responding to mandatory modern slavery disclosure legislation. Experimentalist governance suggests that organisations faced with disclosure requirements such as those contained in the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015 will compete with one another, and in doing so, improve compliance. The authors seek to understand whether this is the case.

This study is set in the UK public sector. The authors conduct interviews with over 25% of UK universities that are within the scope of the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015 and examine their reporting and disclosure under that legislation.

The authors find that, contrary to the logic of experimentalist governance, universities' disclosures as reflected in their modern slavery statements are persistently poor on detail, lack variation and have led to little meaningful action to tackle modern slavery. They show that this is due to a herding effect that results in universities responding as a sector rather than independently; a built-in incapacity to effectively manage supply chains; and insufficient attention to the issue at the board level. The authors also identity important boundary conditions of experimentalist governance.

The generalisability of the authors’ findings is restricted to the public sector.

In contexts where disclosure under the UK Modern Slavery Act 2015 is not a core offering of the sector, and where competition is limited, there is little incentive to engage in a “race to the top” in terms of disclosure. As such, pro-forma compliance prevails and the effectiveness of disclosure as a tool to drive change in supply chains to safeguard workers is relatively ineffective. Instead, organisations must develop better knowledge of their supply chains and executives and a more critical eye for modern slavery to be combatted effectively. Accountants and their systems and skills can facilitate this development.

This is the first investigation of the organisational processes and activities which underpin disclosures related to modern slavery disclosure legislation. This paper contributes to the accounting and disclosure modern slavery literature by investigating public sector organisations' processes, activities and responses to mandatory reporting legislation on modern slavery.

The purpose of this paper is to study the influence of remote education on the consumer value of university education by the example of modern Russia.

The authors determine the consumer value of university education in modern Russia in the conditions of the availability of predominantly traditional education; determine socio-economic problems that are caused by the low consumer value of university education in modern Russia; determine the potential of remote education in the increase of the consumer value of university education; and develop recommendations for the increase of the consumer value of university education in modern Russia through the development of remote education.

It is concluded that traditional university education is dominating in Russia. It is standardized and does not allow for the full consideration of individual capabilities and needs of each separate student, which causes the low consumer value of university education. The limitation of traditional and remote education, caused by the fact that educational services in each form are provided by completely different universities, hinders the development of the potential of remote education in stimulating the increase of the consumer value of university education.

In order to solve this problem, it is recommended to unify traditional and remote education within the diversification of the forms of the provision of educational services by modern Russian universities. For that, a conceptual model for increasing the consumer value of university education in modern Russia through the development of remote education is presented. This model focuses on applicant and students with their individual capabilities and needs and universities with their material and technical, intellectual, marketing and other resources. At that, the educational form goes to the background, being not a self-goal but a method of its achievement – the provision of the high consumer value of university education.

This chapter explores the impact of postgraduate entrepreneurship and enterprise (E&E) education in UK Universities on the entrepreneurial actions of foreign students by reference to students from the second largest transition economy, Russia. The research identifies the most popular courses selected by foreign students for UK study and to identify and qualify the related student experience in order to identify correlations with how graduates exploit entrepreneurial opportunities upon return to home country. British universities have placed increasing dependency on foreign students which has increased pressure to enhance curricula to ‘embrace a wider global context’. Universities have been pressured also to play a new role in society by pursuing a ‘third mission’ of economic development to support the traditional roles of research and teaching. The increase in supply of HE providers has increased competition for students so curricula have to be innovative in order to attract them. An interpretivist philosophy and qualitative methods was employed across three phases, to study university managers, selected according to university and contact with foreign students; Russian non-government officials, selected to comment on the nexus of issues around Russian business and college education; and graduates (‘past’ and ‘recent’), selected according to country of origin, focus of studies and choice of university. This study confirmed that ‘the UK has a long tradition of the university third mission role’ where ‘HEIs are independent, self-governing bodies’, ‘most or part-funded by government’ and since 1992, seen an increase in the overall number; universities have been especially aggressive in pursuing foreign students so have led in designing attractive programmes and curricula. Findings show that modern UK University E&E teaching is effective in changing foreign students’ entrepreneurship perception and behaviour. The university/course selection and teaching/learning experience combine to produce measurable post-study entrepreneurial actions, whether in starting new or joining existing businesses with new found knowledge, social capital and ways of viewing the world.

With respect to the guiding “ideas” of Humboldt and their consequences for the constitution of science, describes the transition to a modern research university with the emergence of theory‐based practice, science‐based technology and technology‐based industry. The pure research imperative is endangered or even substituted by a new technological imperative

For the longest period of its history, the university was the guardian and transmitter – not the producer – of knowledge. This relatively recent change of transmitting canonical knowledge and generating new knowledge is normally associated with Wilhelm von Humboldt. Other highly influential university models were provided by France and Great Britain. The association of certain types of universities with particular countries is a strong indicator of the intricate link between nation-state and education. Hence, the history of tertiary education and its elite institutions, the research universities, must be considered in relation with a sea change in educational history – the gradual emergence of national education systems. Only under the conditions of the by now standard form of organizing modern societies as nation-states did education become a central institution (Meyer, Boli, Thomas, & Ramirez, 1997) collapsing individual perfectibility and national progress. The nationally redefined university was integrated into the education system as its keystone while also being considered the motor of societal development. From a social history perspective, the latter aspect in particular indicates the pragmatic (training professionals, imparting military and technical knowledge, etc.) and symbolic expectations, “myths” of the nation-state that have been so aptly described and analyzed in numerous macro-sociological neo-institutionalist studies (Meyer, Ramirez, & Soysal, 1992; Meyer et al., 1997; Ramirez & Boli, 1987). In a macro-phenomenological perspective, the term “myth” is used to denote a fundamental change in the self-description of European society which since the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries no longer views itself as consisting of separate collectivities divided from each other by social origin – as was the case under feudal conditions – with each collectivity providing itself the necessary education for its members or being provided for by others in the case of neediness. Instead, as a result of a number of material and immaterial changes, society now defines the individual as its key unit, with the nation being consequently the aggregate of individuals and not of collectivities and the state redefined as the guardian of the nation. This conception might be taken as a kind of overlapping area which includes different approaches, such as Michel Foucault's concept of the disciplinary society (Foucault, 1977), Balibar and Wallerstein's (1991) deliberations on the relation between race, class, and nation, and Benedict Anderson's (1991) description of nations as imagined communities. All these studies could be taken as sharing the notion of “constructedness” (cf. Berger & Luckmann, 1972) of modern society with the neo-institutionalist perspective. The concept of a “world polity” which encompasses the “myths” society is based on, the overall notion of a cognitive culture, which takes Max Weber's concept of rationality as a point of departure, is identified as the basis of isomorphic change in the organizational structure of modern education systems (cf. Baker & Wiseman, 2006). However, the strong emphasis on international, world system embeddedness of nation-states and their education systems is not to be taken as a unidirectional dependence on external forces. While modern nation-states originate from and remain tied to international dynamics and developments, they are conceived as unique entities. For most of their history, modern nation-states have been preoccupied with making themselves distinct from each other. Thus, while international competition has always been present, looking abroad traditionally meant reworking, adapting, and reshaping what was imported, or borrowed (Halpin & Troyna, 1995; Steiner-Khamsi, 2004). This is true for education as well as for other areas of society.

The purpose of the paper is to develop the scientific and methodological provision of an audit of training of digital personnel for the regional economy in the conditions of Industry 4.0 by the example of regional flagship universities of modern Russia.

The authors use the method of regression analysis for determining the dependence of the level of digitization of regions’ economy on the competitiveness of their basic universities. The research is performed by the example of regions of the Volga Federal District of the Russian Federation, in which there are regional flagship universities as of early 2019.

It is determined that audit of training of digital personnel for the regional economy in the conditions of Industry 4.0 in modern Russia is conducted within the monitoring of the effectiveness of universities by the Ministry of Education and Science of the Russian Federation. Most of the indicators that are necessary for the audit of training of digital personnel for the regional economy in the conditions of Industry 4.0 are not taken into account. The data of the monitoring allow compiling a fragmentary idea of the potential of a regional flagship university in training of digital personnel for the regional economy in the conditions of Industry 4.0, while the results of this training are not assessed or controlled. This leads to low potential and low efficiency of Russia’s regional flagship universities in training of digital personnel for the regional economy in the conditions of Industry 4.0.

The forms for an audit of training of digital personnel for the regional economy in the conditions of Industry 4.0 by the regional flagship university are developed. The indicators of the potential and results of the university in training of digital personnel are combined with the existing methodology of evaluation of the effectiveness of universities in Russia. An additional advantage of the authors’ recommendations is the universal character of the developed forms, which allows using them in other countries for an audit of training of digital personnel for the regional economy in the conditions of Industry 4.0.

The purpose of this paper is to determine the possibilities and barriers of the practical application of internationally recognized diplomas of higher education.

The authors used SWOT analysis for determining preconditions and barriers as well as possibilities and threats that are related to the provision and practical application of internationally recognized diplomas of higher education and the method of modeling of socio-economic processes and systems for compiling a conceptual model of the provision and practical application of internationally recognized diplomas of higher education. Demand for the practical application of internationally recognized diplomas in modern Russia is determined with the method of analysis of statistical data (method of economic statistics). The information and analytical basis of the research consists of materials of the Federal State Statistics Service of the Russian Federation.

It is shown by the example of modern Russia that the practical application of internationally recognized diplomas is popular, and universities that provide remote education possess wide possibilities in the sphere of their provision, as they are characterized by high flexibility that allows them to adapt to the international standards of university education. The barriers of the practical application of internationally recognized diplomas of higher education are caused by the lack of clear and generally recognized international standards of university education, absence of entrepreneurial culture of application of internationally recognized diplomas and absence of international organization that certifies activities of universities and issues licenses for internationally recognized diplomas.

In order to overcome these barriers, the authors created a conceptual model of the provision and practical application of internationally recognized diplomas of higher education.

The purpose of this paper is to verify the offered hypothesis and to determine high-priority directions of modernization of university education in an innovational society by the example of modern Russia.

During the empirical study of connection between university education and innovational development of economy, the author uses the method of correlation and factor analysis.

As a result of the research, the author has come to the conclusion that under conditions of transition to innovational society, there is transformation of the role of university education from the means of transition of knowledge and skills, necessary for practical activities, to a platform for the creation of innovations. The author analyzed the peculiarities of innovational society and found out that innovations that are the key driver of its development are provided by the system of university education.

Practical value of the work consists in a possibility for use of the developed recommendations for modernization of university education in the innovational society in modern Russia and other countries with similar problems.

Theoretical importance and scientific value of the performed research consists in the development of innovational society and innovations-oriented economy, as well as the concept of university education.