Higher education regionalism in the former Soviet Union: a qualitative exploration of Russian university branch campuses

ABSTRACT

Drawing on higher education regionalism, this paper explores international branch campus (IBC) initiatives undertaken by one of the largest Russian IBC-exporting institutions, the Lomonosov Moscow State University (LMSU). To date, very little is known about higher education (HE) export-import between the post-Soviet countries. This qualitative inquiry critically examines the Soviet legacy of LMSU IBCs to understand their origins, purposes, and utility as a form of HE export. This paper sheds light on (1) the similarities and differences between six LMSU IBCs and (2) discourses used to rationalise the establishment of LMSU branch campuses. The findings from this paper suggest that LMSU IBCs are established (a) to promote the Russian HE model, (b) to strengthen political and cultural ties with neighbouring countries, and (c) to bolster LMSU’s image and brand appeal in the region.

KEYWORDS:

• Post-Soviet
• IBC
• higher education
• regionalism

Acknowledgments

I thank Dr. Oren Pizmony-Levy and his publication class that gave me an opportunity to produce the first draft of this paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/03057925.2022.2078953

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.