Abstract:

Industry 4.0 in the short term can radically change the system of higher education in the world and in Russia. The COVID-19 pandemic has accelerated the digitalization of higher education through the introduction of distance learning. The working conditions of academic staff have changed, there is a need to improve digital competencies and work with new software. Along with new opportunities, digitalization and automation of academic work poses global threats to the well-being of academic, related to workload optimization and job losses. The authors investigate the attitude of Russian academic staff to such global risks as: digital unemployment, pandemic, inflation and social unrest. The results of the sociological survey showed that academic staff associate the main threats to their well-being with unemployment, with the massive spread of infectious diseases, as well as with the rise in real estate prices and the economic crisis. Most of the respondents are not worried about digitalization and robotization of education, as they are confident in their professionalism, or are ready to master new specialties. Thus, despite a sufficient level of psychological readiness for digitalization among academic staff, the digital transformation of higher education should be accompanied by measures of social and economic support for academic staff.

Keywords:

Pandemic, industry 4.0, well-being, academic staff, digitalization, global risks.