Nowadays there is an ongoing debate about the transition to the new system of contractual relations between universities and the professoriate in Russia. The aim of such the transformation is to improve the quality of teaching and research. This policy helps to create a competitive environment in the Russian higher education market, and as at the international level. The reform requires the development of contracts to motivate the academic staff, who play a crucial role in the creation and transfer of knowledge (Arimoto 2009). Moreover, there is a positive correlation between the level of monetary remuneration of professors and economic development reflected in the level of GDP per capita (Androuschak, Yudkevich 2012a). In addition, the need to study effective contracts is determined by the conditions for a general reduction in the relative attractiveness of the academic profession (Altbach et al. 2012).

For the last 25 years the Russian system of higher education has undergone several dramatic changes which affected the prestige and social status of the academic profession. A sharp decline in levels of faculty remuneration affected the employment decisions forcing university professors to leave the Russian academic market and apply for jobs in the private sector or move abroad. In 2012 major reforms in Russian higher education were announced, hence it is necessary to determine the baseline for the salary structure in the period after the negative economic and educational shocks and before the expected educational transformations.

There are numerous studies which explore the relationship between a professor’s salary and his activities in academia (Katz 1973; Siegfried, White 1973; Tuckman, Hagemann 1976; Gomez-Mejia, Balkin 1992). Most of them were conducted on the highly developed American academic market with a variety of forms of contracts in universities. However, this topic is new for Russia. Moreover, we should take into account the number of institutional characteristics of the Russian academic market, which can affect the incentives of professors, universities and the Ministry of Education.

The aim of this study is the identification and evaluation of the activities of the professoriate which determine their income. The period chosen for the analysis represents the situation when the Russian academic profession lost its attractiveness after the break-up of the Soviet Union. This was a time when significant global and local trends concerned with the massification of higher education, and the increased and often adverse mobility and diversification of academia, took place. On the other hand this is a strategic time and a starting point for the analysis because in 2012 Russia was on the verge of new reforms, the need for which was caused by the new challenges of globalization and the transition to a knowledge economy. In order to succeed, a better design of academic contracts was needed because professors are the main source of academic excellence. Hence, we should highlight the extremely important role of incentives. This exploratory study estimates the determinants of academic salary and reveals the problems which faced Russian professors before the significant reforms in the Russian academic sector.

In this study we use data from the project ‘Changing Academic Profession’ – an international study of the professoriate . While the major survey took place in 2007 in 10 countries, the survey in Russia was conducted in 2012 (CAP-Russia 2012). The base was formed by the translated and adapted questionnaire (see Yudkevich et al. 2013) to allow comparisons between countries. The Russian sample consists of 25 institutions of higher education (from 9 regions, only accredited public institutions), 64 respondents at each institution were interviewed. The survey took place in autumn 2012, i.e. at the moment shortly after the major reforms of contracts in the university sector were announced. To estimate the determinants of academic salary we propose an econometric model (an analogue of Mincer equation), where we regress academic salary on the determinants of teaching, research, and administrative duties. We control for gender and seniority. Seniority was taken in linear and squared forms, which reflects the non-linear relationship between seniority and faculty remuneration, where salary may rise with seniority until certain age, may decline afterwards, for example, because of diminishing individual productivity. We pay special attention to seniority in this study because in Russia academic salary in the standard (Soviet) design is highly dependent on faculty status which in turn depends on with seniority. The model estimates allow a comparison of the relative contribution of research productivity and seniority to academic salary. In other words, we can see the balance between the contribution of recently required elements and legacy ones. We ran several regression models in different specifications and for different subsamples. After the 2006 and 2008 reforms the composition of universities became more heterogeneous. Universities with special status (National research universities and Federal universities) are different from those with no status because of their research orientation and corresponding motivational schemes. Hence, we expect heterogeneity in the determinants of academic salary between these types of universities. For these reasons a separate model is estimated only for the universities with no special status, while other models are for NRUs and FUs respectively. Preliminary estimates show the existence of a gender salary gap in academia. Justified by the need for the separate estimations, we run separate regressions for male and female faculty.

In general, the number of publications positively affects academic salary, but indicators of research productivity are different for each type of institution. The role of teaching is positive for the entire sample, NRUs and male professors, but insignificant for other subsamples. Consequently, in NRUs, which are focused mainly on research, teaching still matters. The role of administrative duties is of importance for academic salary: the effect is positive and differs from 15% to 51%. We discovered gender inequality in terms of academic rewards: in general (except universities with special status), male professors earn more than their female colleagues (maximal difference between male and female pay is 32.5%). Seniority matters and there are positive effects of seniority on academic salary. The most logical results were obtained for NRUs, where academic salary is determined by the research activity (articles in academic journals), teaching activity and administrative duties. In dynamic aspects, academic salary raises with seniority, which corresponds to both human capital theory and agency theory. Salary in NRUs reflects gender equality. Overall, we found that academic salary is mostly dependent on administrative duties and seniority, while the impact of research productivity is low. This cannot create proper incentives for increased publication activity because according to the estimates one paper published in the previous 3 years brings 4 times less to the salary than simply 3 additional years of seniority. This situation does not meet the requirements laid down in the new reforms. However, significant changes affecting the professorate, their incentives, motivation and academic salary after 2012 have taken place. Consequently, further research is needed in light of the reforms in Russian higher education.

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