Abstract:

Over the last few years, Russian universities have been actively entering the international educational environment. In order to be competitive to attract the best students and financing, universities have to establish themselves in the international educational community and build a recognizable image. To achieve this, they must provide high quality education and demonstrate a high level of research and publishing activities. However, according to international rankings (QS, THE) Russian universities fall behind in many of these areas.

Research has been conducted to investigate the reasons for the low positions of Russian universities in international rankings and propose faculty development programs to resolve the issue. At Plekhanov Russian University of Economics (PRUE), over 150 faculty members completed tests (provided by Education First) to define their level of foreign language professional competence. The results of the tests were later compared against the requirements of Federal Educational Standards for different levels of university faculty. As a result, wide disparities were revealed. In order to enable PRUE faculty members to conduct research and teach students internationally, a special training program was developed.

Keywords:

Faculty development programme, foreign language professional competence, academic mobility.