Abstract:

Nowadays the internationalization of the global space of higher education correlates with the competition in the field of economy and innovations. Today, higher education is a competitive business, and human resources are a new parameter of competitiveness. Universities are transforming into strategic, knowledge-based corporations involved in the competition for transnational educational markets.
The global market of educational services consists of many stakeholders. There are world-class universities (WCU) at the top of the pyramid of diverse universities.
World-class universities are characterized by their ability to compete in the global educational market due to the high quality of education and research projects through the generation, adaptation and implementation of innovative knowledge. The reputation of world-class universities is based on highly qualified graduates, research papers, published in the best scientific journals. At present, the issue of recognizing the status of an educational institution is determined by a set of qualitative and quantitative indicators, graded by the largest ranking agencies.
Research of the international rankings allowed us to identify that world-class universities with a long history of development (200-400 years) are located at the top. The vast majority of elite universities are concentrated in the USA, where they are represented by the informal club - Ivy League. The most prominent representatives of the international educational market who have made a breakthrough and entered the TOP 100 modern rankings are China, Germany, Japan, and France.
The author examined the features of competitiveness enhancement programs implemented in China, Germany, France, Russia, Japan, and Poland.
The main priority of the Chinese government was to improve the quality of teaching and research; to establish the international authority and to enforce positions among the world class universities. At the same time, the German program is more deposed in the field of promoting advanced research, creating excellent conditions for young scientists in universities, deepening interaction between academic subjects and institutions, strengthening international cooperation in research. German government named the universities - winners - the new representatives of the Ivy League.
The enhancement of the French and Japanese educational sectors involved development and implementation of measures related to excellence, relevance and management of the university research system.
The developers of the Russian competitiveness program have put the development of all areas that are included in the ranking indicators as their priority: science, education, reputation, innovations. It is one of reasons why program was not completed on time: there was no focus on the special areas. But it is important to note that leaders are already shaped and highly represented in several international rankings.
The Polish government has just launched its program; the most important goal is to raise the level of all universities to the two existing leaders.
In the presented paper author used elements of the strategic analysis to specify level of the examined competitiveness enhancement programs: polygon of competitiveness and four corner’s analysis. It allowed us to evaluate modern situation of the Eurasian Ivy League formation in terms of the cross – cultural, state, educational, research and innovative issues.

Keywords:

World class universities, competitiveness enhancement program, federal university, internationalization of higher education