Rector Ilshat Gafurov and Vice-Rector Raisa Mullakaeva were at the meeting on November 29th.

The main report was made by Minister Olga Vasilyeva. She concentrated on the salary issues and reminded that university educators should earn at least 200% of the average in their region in 2018.

She said, in particular, “I understand that rectors’ salaries, taking into account their responsibilities and workload, must be higher than that of the lecturers, and we do keep this in mind when we determine their size. But there should be some moral compass; your people sometimes earn little, and you bring us data about high average salaries in your institution and ask to give you 700 thousand rubles a month – and educators get 35-45 thousand. My colleagues in the Department of Control and Revision have made a number of information papers on how the management of some universities only distributes funds to their closest circles without raising salaries for the majority of teaching personnel. It’s like ‘you have 20, I have 120, and together we have 70 on average’.”

She mentioned that 2 billion rubles will be allocated additionally in 2017 to reach the target numbers in remuneration. Also, some movements to more autonomy and self-regulation in higher education will be made. Questions of financial regulation and accounting in universities were also discussed at the meeting.

Moreover, as was said at the seminar, a steady rise in public investment in research can be found in Russia. The number has climbed from 700 billion rubles in 2012 to 940 billion in 2016 – and should reach about 980 billion in 2018. In particular, more money has been allocated to the Russian Foundation for Basic Research and bilateral cooperation with overseas universities.