The Rector of the European University, Vadim Volkov, gave an interview to "Rektor Govorit!" (The Rector Speaks!), an expert publication on higher education. The scholar discussed the mission of EUSP, its new objectives, the educational process, the endowment fund, what constitutes literacy in 2025, and also how subcultures emerge within the academic community.
Here is an excerpt from the interview:
— What drives the European University to move into new areas?
— The old matrix of the social sciences and humanities is reaching its limits. Knowledge based on observations has changed because the methods of observation and the data itself have changed. Scientific methods are also changing due to the accelerated development of technologies for data production, collection, and processing, and the intervention of artificial intelligence. For a long time, the information technology revolution followed its own path, and the social sciences and humanities followed theirs. The development of the social sciences and humanities slowed down, and their prestige began to decline, because what is prestigious is what is technological. The European University is at the forefront of the social sciences and humanities, but the very thing it is at the forefront of is no longer a forefront.
Our new task is to make the social sciences and humanities attractive again, as they were in the last century, by synthesizing them with advanced technological solutions. Then this field will gain new life, become exciting again, and attract a new generation of bright young people.
— What you're saying is very interesting, because when people think about the social sciences and humanities, they often associate them exclusively with heritage, traditions, preserving the past—that is, looking backward. You, however, are directing this social sciences and humanities "spotlight" forward: a technological revolution has happened, the world has changed, and therefore knowledge in the social sciences and humanities must be integrated into this new reality in a new way.
— We can also look at this from another angle. Technologies carry risks. By themselves, technologies have neither will nor meaning. The humanities are a source of meaning and can give technology purpose and determine its vector. Otherwise, it's not certain that artificial intelligence will make us happy and free. Many leading development centers are searching for a social concept of AI, exploring how it integrates into human and community life, and what its role models are. Programmers and developers handle technical tasks. But there are also ethical tasks, and solving them requires knowledge beyond programming.
— How do you assess the current state of the social sciences?
— In the social sciences and humanities, there is an inherent problem with objectivity. There is always an attempt to embed someone's interests: those of the researcher, a group, a political party, bureaucracy, and the knowledge produced can be distorted under the influence of these interests. The "left" is particularly fond of doing this. But not only them. A certain area can be studied from the perspective of potential manageability or as a tool of political struggle. Sociology, for example, is regularly reduced to an ideological instrument, associated with public opinion polling or the preferences of potential buyers. In physics, there are also group, institutional, or governmental interests, but they do not affect the method and cannot influence the procedure or the result because it is fundamentally objective. In the social sciences and humanities, interests colonize the choice of problem and even the method itself.
We have already overcome provincialism, idiosyncrasy in posing problems, and methodological backwardness in the social sciences and humanities. On an international scale, the current problem is to separate scholarly discourse from ideological discourse. Working with big data—its collection and analysis—offers the social sciences and humanities an opportunity to achieve a higher level of evidence. Information technologies offer hope for a way out of the impasse. But for now, it's only a hope.
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— Is it important for you to shape the academic subculture at the university in a diverse way, so that it includes both those inclined to stay for many years and, conditionally, cosmopolitans with ambitions to carry out a major project with you and then continue their career in some other laboratory in the world? Or does all this happen naturally?
— Ideally, I would like the European University to be governed not by managerial methods, not by administrative control, sanctions, reports, or vertical hierarchy, but through the construction of a specific subculture. This is a delicate thing, embodying the aspiration not to supplant the nature of what a teacher does. Not to demand reports, not to set indicators, but to focus on meaningful, substantive work, because only through this can a person realize themselves. Scholarship and teaching, if free of bureaucratic burden, is wonderful; it is the highest form of self-realization, surpassed only by art. In scholarship, a person, in a good sense, loses themselves, because sometimes scholarship makes them happy. But for now, this is just an ideal, because higher education in our country is quite comprehensively regulated.
Do employees leave us? Yes, they do. That means we must become better, so that our draw is stronger. International competition in research is high, and people certainly move to other universities. Some return later. I myself was a PhD student in England for four years, and after my defense, I returned to St. Petersburg, specifically to the European University. Academic mobility is a tricky thing. When you move, it seems like you are choosing a different job, a different university. In fact, you are choosing the country and culture where you will live. And that is far more than just the university.
— Another feature of the European University is that the development of its educational and research programs occurs, among other things, through attracting funding from companies, foundations, individuals, and philanthropists. This is atypical for Russian education. Why do you think you succeed at this, while most universities do not?
— Where there's a will, there's a way. According to ratings, we have the second-largest endowment. Skoltech is in first place. Third is MGIMO, which is very successful in growing its endowment fund; the university has many successful graduates. The Higher School of Economics, as far as I know, also actively attracts corporate funding to develop its centers and projects. Generally, this works for universities that make systematic efforts in this direction. Those that simply live on guaranteed budget funding don't even feel the need for it.
For the European University, the endowment fund is the financial foundation; its returns account for up to a third of the annual operating budget. We actively interact with large and medium-sized companies and banks. These are exclusively Russian funds. Our endowment, philanthropy, and research projects are actually our main sources of funding, and only a small part of the budget comes from tuition fees. Everyone thinks we are a for-profit university, but we are not. The total amount of scholarships we pay to students is significantly higher than the total tuition fees the university receives.
— Why do private companies give money to the university?
— Because the university's governance system inspires their trust. We have an active, responsible Board of Trustees that really works. Its chairman is Mikhail Borisovich Piotrovsky, Director of the State Hermitage Museum. The board includes people of the highest reputation with diverse competencies, including scholars, entrepreneurs, and managers. The Board of Trustees seeks out and appoints the rector, evaluates their work twice a year, approves the financial report, and participates in strategic planning and donor relations. The board acts as a guarantor that the money received by the university will produce exactly the result for which it was requested. And those who support the university or specific projects are aware of these results.