Abstract:

The acceleration of scientific and technological progress, the increasing role of digitalization and the knowledge economy are the most important features of the world economic development. it is necessary to form the country's education system in accordance with international standards, openness to the global environment, and intercultural interaction.

Universities have become active actors in the development of the world economy, a group of world-class universities has formed, which is significantly ahead of other representatives of the higher education system. The priorities in the system of universities internationalization have changed: along with the traditional processes of partnership and mutually beneficial exchanges on the basis of cooperation, internationalization has transformed into a competition between universities for recognition, a high place in the rankings, business to attract the best students and staff.

For many universities, the task of conducting a comprehensive assessment of the level of internationalization of their international activities, setting priorities and directions for increasing the level of internationalization is urgent. However, the impact of the current stage of internationalization requires the development of fundamentally new approaches to the implementation of these tasks.

In the presented study, the authors have built a three-stage methodology for the evaluation of the level of university internationalization, based on the following blocks: factors of internationalization, reflecting all areas of international activities of universities; clusters of universities, allowing them to be ranked according to the level of international activity and to identify them as "candidate", "master" and "grandmaster"; university growth points, determined using strategic analysis of the external and internal environment, as well as the index of cluster internationalization.

With the help of the author's methodology, it is possible to carry out a gradation of all universities by clusters for the further development of an effective internationalization strategy.

Keywords:

World class universities, internationalization of higher education, clustering of universities, factors of internationalization.