Legal Status and Management Models of the Chief Designer Position in Russian Universities

The purpose of this study is to defi ne the legal status of the Chief Designer and their role within the university management system. For the first time, the paper presents a review of regulatory legal acts that directly or indirectly outline individual elements of the Chief Designer’s legal status. It analyzes existing and proposed practices for introducing this position in Russian universities and formulates approaches to defining and formalizing the Chief Designer’s duties, place within the management structure, and overall functional responsibilities. The authors propose a typology of models describing the functional and role-based status of Chief Designers. It is noted that, in Russian practice, Chief Designers effectively perform the role of key researchers (Principal Investigators), which is characteristic of international research systems. The research results, presented as a “catalog” of organizational and managerial solutions, can be used by university leadership, as well as human resources and legal departments. In particular, university administrators may apply one of the authors’ proposed methods for implementing the Chief Designer (Principal Investigator) functional model in practice.