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The purpose of this paper is to analyse critically the Russian Academic Excellence Initiative (the Project 5-100), designed to propel five leading Russian universities into world university rankings (WURs) by 2020, and research it through the lens of neoliberalism. The paper seeks to reveal recurrent discourses and dominant orders of discourse constituting the overall concept of “excellence” in Russian higher education (HE) policy.

Since the Project 5-100 has been designed in line with a neoliberal model of academic excellence initiatives, emphasising “competition as a driver of excellence” (Hazelkorn, 2009), Fairclough’s approach to critical discourse analysis (CDA) has been adopted as a qualitative research method. There is no universally accepted definition of “excellence” in HE policy; therefore, this CDA also aims at revealing the Russian government’s vision of the concept and its voice in HE policy.

The paper concludes that the government reinforces neoliberal discourse on the HE agenda and transforms the 5-100 Universities’ identities through emphasising the role of WURs in modernising the HE system. Consequently, within the neoliberal paradigm, the Project 5-100 can be regarded as a manifestation of the commodification of “excellence” in Russian HE policy.

This research intends to broaden knowledge of excellence initiatives in HE policy and reveal their features and neoliberal natures. It also seeks to contribute in terms of showcasing a qualitative study of the Project 5-100 for future comparative analyses of similar HE policies.