This paper applies multi-level approach to analyze the role of higher education systems in socio-economic development with a focus on post-Soviet countries and with a special emphasis on the potential for transformative impact on HEI on societal development through the formation of students agency (various types of students entrepreneurship and project-based activities, action-research, voluntarism etc.). We analyze supra-national initiatives, national policies, leading universities’ practices, and the actual characteristics of selected education programs in these universities.

We aim to reveal principally new models of policy-making that are being launched aimed at more direct impact on national socio-economic development through students agency. This shift reflects the novel global and national realities, which imply critical insufficiency of the contribution by higher education systems to socio-economic development - a problem also discussed as “global productivity paradox” but having strong national specificity.

New institutionalism theory provides the conceptual grounds for the paper, It suggests that, to some extent, all post-soviet countries (even the least democratic and open from the point of view of the objective quality of institutional environment) may promote transformative impact of education, including higher education, on the national policy level (Meyer, 2010). This can happen not only because of the presumed efficiency of mass individual agency in these contexts, but also as a response to the globally transmitted “progressive” cultural patterns associated with “World society” (meyer, 2010). to be more precise, new institutionalist argument is that education promotes being proactive, innovative, entrepreneurial as a morally positive phenomenon (linked to the broader themes like “progress”). As shown in literature, the collapse of the USSR was one of the major factors in shaping the culturally legitimate global “World society” with Eastern Europe joining the West in celebrating democracy and capitalism, which stimulated education expansion (Schofer & Meyer, 2005). From this perspective, one may expect that national policies as well as formal conditions in the leading universities and characteristics of the educational programs devoted to development of individual agency (for instance, in the form of entrepreneurship training) will be to a certain degree similar in all the post-soviet countries. however, the actual practices in concrete universities and programs may vary significantly, not always reflecting the “global standard” in the same way, though referring to the latter in explicit or latent forms.

We analyze supra-national initiatives, national policies, leading universities’ practices, and the actual characteristics of selected education programs in these universities. To give the general understanding of the institutional environment in post-soviet countries and its differentiation, we outline these countries basic indicators according to authoritative international rankings (countries are ranged according to their GDP per capita). On the next stage we analyze policy documents. This part of analysis aims to answer several research questions, linked to the theoretical perspectives outlined above. First, is agency-oriented education in the field of higher education – a part of declared state agenda, or not? We expect explicit direct formulation of this topic across policy documents in post-soviet countries reflecting its recognition in the global discourse. secondly, we try to comprehend the content of policies on the related issues in higher education. For instance, do they constitute a specific line of policy or are they integrated in the broader policy agenda on education in general (including other levels of education as well) and/or economic development? to what extent do these policies explicitly orient on the development of concrete skills/competences or attitudes/ values (reflecting, on the one hand, technical (skills as “human capital”), and, on the other hand, symbolic (values as “culture”) goals? do policies declare intentions to cover with university-based agency-oriented training any special social groups, including minorities (in line with new institutionalist arguments about the expanding responsibility of the state for emerging new legitimate identities)? do policies emphasize special attention to technological or social goals for such training? to what extent do policies articulate international cooperation in the related initiatives? On the next stage we analyze the leading universities in the post-soviet environment – those that are included in the prestigious Qs rankings: (1) Quacquarelli symonds World university rankings by subject 2020: business & management studies; (2) Quacquarelli symonds World university rankings by region 2020: Emerging Europe & central asia; (3) Quacquarelli symonds World university rankings 2020). We analyzed the characteristics of support for agency-development (various types of students entrepreneurship and project-based activities, action-research, voluntarism etc.) based on the official web sites and publicly available documents of the selected sample of 16 universities. In order to look closer at the micro-level, we also conducted a questionnaire survey and obtained several expert interviews with a number of supervisors of the mentioned above programs.

The paper demonstrates, relates to each other and classifies a variety of ways how higher education institutions a being pushed towards producing more impact in terms of not only institutional agency (for instance, cooperation of universities with external parties like industrial companies in promoting technological innovations), but also, individual agency of students, implying broader comprehension of the effects higher education produce beyond increased wages on labor market (which tragically often is not happening). It is showed that central place is occupied by policies aimed at promotion of entrepreneurship, including the latest major initiative in the development of entrepreneurship on post-soviet space - the Russian federal project “Platform of University Technological Entrepreneurship”. It also argued that the paradoxically the orientation towards increasing agency of students and graduates become common feature for the majority of post-soviet countries - however, the concrete accents of these agency vary substantially, which reflects the broader issues of politics of policy making in education and national specifics.

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