The study contributes to the discussion of how strategic planning at universities is related to their performance, looking at the case of Russian universities. Over the last decades, various mechanisms of strategic management in the public sector were introduced in Russia at the federal level. As a result in the higher education sector, the majority of universities report using the tools of strategic thinking. Besides, Russian public policy in higher education of the last decades pays considerable attention to stimulating universities’ performance.

The core conceptual argument of this paper is that despite different contexts why universities develop their strategies, there might be a relation between strategic activities (strategic planning, strategy formulation and implementation) and institutional-level performance of universities. This argument is based on several dimensions of the discussions - from meta- to micro-level - developed in the literature. Firstly, a flourishing rational managerial environment links strategies with effectiveness in higher education (Gumport 2012). Strategies are the elements of good governance in the global perception of modern organizations (Ramirez, 2006). Secondly, the role of public government is emphasized in formulating key priorities and governing tools for higher education institutions (Capano 2011). The public government body communicates its priorities through specific instruments and structures. The government, shaped by New Public Management principles, requires from universities different planning procedures; increases the level of competition between higher education institutions; adopts steering models (Fumasoli and Lepori 2010). Universities have to align their activities with specific performance goals framed by accountability and funding procedures (Capano 2011; Frolich 2011). Thirdly, micro-level practices matter, they shape the strategic process and bring changes in organizational behaviors (Jarzabkowski 2005). Strategy formulation and implementation bring changes in structures (establishment of new academic and service units, merger of departments, etc.), institutional rules, and principles of resource allocation (Rowley and Sherman, 2004), which might affect the performance results. 

Thus, the research question is formulated as follows: Do the changes brought by strategy implementation align with the changes in universities' performance outputs?

The empirical analysis is based on the survey data (the Monitoring of education markets and organization, survey 2020) and statistics (the Monitoring of HEIs' performance 2020). The total sample consists of 311 public universities We compare the opinions of the heads of the departments/faculties about changes that appeared in the universities with strategy implementation (five categories: competition among different departments of the university; autonomy level of the departments; opportunities for the human development; opportunities for additional funding of research projects; administrative burden on the departments) and changes in HEIs' performance indicators (four indicators: R&D per faculty, number of publications indexed in WoS per 100 faculty members, average entrance exam score, total income per faculty).

The preliminary results of the analysis show that universities in which department heads note the positive impact of the strategy on various aspects of their activities, on average, are characterized by relatively higher growth rates of performance indicators. Most often, statistically significant differences are observed in indicators reflecting research productivity - a volume of R&D per faculty and number of publications indexed in the WoS per 100 faculty members. This observation can have different explanations. In recent years in Russia various policy interventions have stimulated research productivity in the higher education sector, which prompted universities to create different incentives for researchers. An alternative explanation for these results is related to the fact that university managers can have a greater influence on the indicators of research productivity in the short term compared to other indicators that were included in the analysis.

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