Impact of digital transformation of the Russian higher education system on the need to develop competencies and career advancement of scientific and pedagogical employees

Introduction. Distance learning, caused by the sanitary and epidemiological situation in the world, has led to the need to restructure the higher education system from the traditional full-time/offline attendance to a distance format. The use of the “newˮ format for higher education assumed the use of digital technologies, therefore there was a need for the formation of appropriate digital and “soft” competencies among the teaching and research staff of higher educational institutions. The purpose of the article is to analyze the satisfaction of teaching and research staff of Russian higher educational institutions with the system of professional and official promotion, their assessment of the need for general professional, organizational and managerial, information communication, regulatory legal and interpersonal competencies in the conditions of digital transformation of the higher education system of the Russian Federation. Materials and Methods. To identify the opinion of scientific and pedagogical workers about changes in the importance of competencies, the development of a business career, the authors conducted a sociological survey of 1,532 scientific and pedagogical workers of higher education. The monitoring was carried out taking into account methodological approaches developed with the participation of the scientific and educational laboratory of the Penza affiliated branch of the Financial University “Strategies for increasing the competitiveness of international activities of universities in the global digital space”. Results. According to the results of the sociological survey, a low level of satisfaction of scientific and pedagogical staff was revealed, caused by the presence of the following problem areas: the prevalence of paper reporting over the scientific and pedagogical activities of employees; excessive bureaucracy that hinders professional and official development; an incorrect system of performance indicators; the absence of a unified career development model for scientific and pedagogical staff of educational institutions. Practice-oriented recommendations have been developed in the field of digital and “softˮ competencies, the formation of a management system for the professional development of scientific and pedagogical staff. Discussion and Conclusion. The formulated theses contribute to the development of theoretical and methodological approaches to the study of the level of satisfaction of scientific and pedagogical staff of Russian universities. The presented materials of the article can be used for research purposes by scientists, researchers dealing with similar issues, as well as federal and regional executive authorities, higher educational organizations in the development of professional development programs for teaching staff.