Key preconditions needed for establishing research universities in Russia

This article is of a conceptual nature and is aimed at identifying certain barriers to forming research universities in Russia. The article demonstrates that research activities that were traditionally considered as supplementary at Russian higher educational institutions can not develop until we solve the problem with the workload balance for teaching staff. At present this balance at Russian universities is considerably distorted in favor of exessive in-class teaching hours. In-class hours for lecturers that form overall workload balance can be radically decreased if Russian universities adopt an international practice based on students'' independent mastering of material, managed and supervised by lecturers. The same organizational and methodical solution would allow for increasing the student-lecturer ratio as recommended by the Ministry for Education and Science. The article gives examples from performance criteria of Russian and foreign universities. Originality of the suggested approach is in the destruction of a stereotype rooted in the system of higher education in Russia which relates long required decrease of in-class hours for lecturers to the growth of teaching staff numbers and decreased student-lecturer ratio.