The Role of Higher Educational Export in Providing Russian National Security

The research aim is to evaluate the role of educational export in ensuring Russian national security. The research objectives include defining strategic security priorities concerning educational exports; identifying key mechanisms for implementing them; and characterizing results of these policies. Based on the ideas of the Copenhagen school of security studies, the author examines educational exports via the concept of securitization as the speech act that may include any issue in security agenda. Thematic analysis of Russian strategic documents revealed that educational exports is supposed to provide economic security via attracting qualified personnel, increasing competitiveness of Russian universities, and generating profits. Achieving societal security is expected via introducing students to Russian language, values and history; and political security – via fostering an objective perception of Russia abroad and enhancing Russia’s role as an international educational center. It is concluded that despite high absolute numbers of international students at Russian universities, most of whom pay fees, Russia occupies a small share of the global educational market and attracts only 10% of foreign graduates to its labor market. It is struggling to improve the position of Russian language abroad. Although international students declare positive attitude to Russia, the benefits of this perception may be visible in the distant future. Russia’s educational export is hampered by increasing competition for applicants and weak branding. Therefore, the role of educational exports in ensuring security may be evaluated currently only based on indirect indicators.