Abstract:

The intercultural interaction of academic staff is formed in two ways: by self-organized activity and as the result of a focused long-term policy to create a unified European educational environment. A high level of competence in the field of intercultural interaction is both the key to successful cooperation in the educational and scientific fields, and the condition of creating a unified world scientific and educational environment. This goes hand in hand with globalization in various fields of human activity. However, the level of intercultural competence of the academic staff in Russian universities is insufficient for fulfilling professional tasks, and there is no developed system to form the competence in intercultural interaction.
This article is an attempt to solve the problem by creating a model of the competencies in intercultural interaction needed by the 21st century academic staff to perform their professional tasks.

A literature review, analysis of the professional activities of the academic staff, observation, and a sociological survey were used to define the features of intercultural interaction. We inductively identified the professional tasks of academic staff in the field of intercultural interaction. A questionnaire, interviews, and an expert assessment method were used to investigate the personal level of competence in intercultural interaction of Russian academic staff.

As a result, intercultural interaction of the academic staff was defined as the process of joint resolution of professional tasks by university representatives from different cultures to promote research, to strengthen national economies, and to improve the quality of education in an effort to combine the interests of science and the global economy with the national interests of separate countries. The professional tasks performed by academic staff in the process of intercultural interaction were identified. They are: organization of international conferences and symposia; participation in international conferences; study of the research of foreign colleagues; implementation of joint research projects; writing scientific papers for peer-reviewed journals; preparation and delivering classes (lectures, seminars, on-line courses, etc..) to international students; and participation in academic mobility training programmes.

We obtained the distribution of the random variable characterizing the individual level of development of the intercultural competence of academic staff in Russian universities. Based on the results described a model of the competencies needed for intercultural interaction was created. It became the basis for the design of the retraining programme for the academic staff of South Ural State University. The programme has been tested for three years. The experimental data shows an increase in the level of academic staff competence in intercultural interaction.

Keywords:

Academic staff, academic mobility, internships, joint research projects, intercultural competence, model of competencies, program, writing research papers.