Abstract:

The current struggle for the control over education in Russia and worldwide is on the one hand a global trend of reshaping society in accordance with the needs of the global market, on the other – it is a major attempt to shape the future of national education systems and thus the future of national economies.

As globalisation based on neoliberal ideas turns universities into perpetuum idea-generators and innovation factories required for sustainable growth of post-industrial economies, universities acquire an increasing role in the economies largely depending on immaterial production.

The paper is based on a pilot research conducted as a case-study in a Russian university and aimed at identifying the reasons of academics’ opposition to the largely introduced innovations and, consequently, the lost support from the academic society at large and finding ways of winning it back on the basis of negotiations and consensus.

The case of Russia offers a bright illustration of the systemic reforms in the higher education supported by the neoliberal concept of innovation, while the opposition against the trend seems to be traditionally suppressed by the large-scale bureaucratic machine and the low citizen activism.

Keywords:

Innovations at universities, opposition, neoliberal reforms, implied markers, negative connotations, personal discourse, content analysis.