Engaging diasporas' potential in higher education system: foreign experience

Introduction: the article deals with the main strategies used by foreign authorities and leading universities in order to foster the material base of the research and educational process. The article also addresses the role of international organisations and programmes in promoting education development. It is important to allocate funds of the diaspora transfers in a targeted manner to education, engaging highly skilled migrants to the joint research projects and otherwise helping to ensure that "brain drain" can be turned into a sharing of knowledge, skills and technology. Materials and Methods: the study is based on the statistic materials, allowing us to make a preliminary assessment of the scope of migrant transfers in the field of higher education, as well as to supply empirical evidence about the so-called "knowledge networks" that demonstrates their quantitative and geographical distribution. The methodological basis of the research is composed of the following methods: a comparative analysis of structural and system analysis and SWOT-analysis. Results: the study confirms the importance of such organisational forms of scientific cooperation as a major inter-university research groups and consortia. Current trends in international migration lead to the strengthening of foreign diasporas both in quantitative and qualitative terms (with regards to education or welfare). At the same time, universities are facing a set of problems related to funding, the complexity of the production of knowledge and innovation, resource-taking upgrades of educational programmes. In this situation, it is reasonable to assume that the migrants of the first and succeeding generations will be able to offset some of the costs, given that there will be a certain stimulus. Discussion and Conclusions: the article recommends to improve the coherence of national activities under conditions of multilevel interactions with diasporas, underlines the necessity of universities' active participation in attracting the attention of diaspora organisations and intermediaries.