News in Press-centre

The competition of the world's leading universities for international students in the online format is escalating due to the pandemic and its consequences. Domestic universities need to be more actively involved in this competition in order to fulfill the export program for Russian education. This was stated by the President of Far Eastern Federal University (FEFU) Nikita Anisimov at a meeting of the Public Council under the Ministry of Science and Higher Education of the Russian Federation dedicated to the discussion of the report "Lessons from the stress test. Universities in and after the pandemic."

The emphasis on flexible educational technologies and the active development of distance education programs will help to keep universities of foreign students who left Russia because of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as attract new ones, thereby maintaining their position in the education export market.

At the “managerial frontier”, which, according to the Minister of Science and Higher Education Valery Falkov, has become higher education during the pandemic, it is important to take these measures into account and propose updates to the federal project “Export of Education”. The Association of Global Universities, with the participation of FEFU, has already prepared corrections to this and other projects that could affect the competitiveness of Russian universities in the field of distance education.

“Russian and foreign experts agree that from 40 to 50 percent of students who would like to study in foreign universities do not consider the possibility of going abroad. This means that FEFU and other domestic universities are faced with the task of working more effectively in the electronic environment, playing more actively in the online educational programs market because exporting education and the issue of attracting foreign students is still an important state policy priority”, said Nikita Anisimov.

The FEFU rector emphasized that all his foreign fellow Presidents from the Association of Leading Universities of the Asia-Pacific Region agree that the competition for foreign students is a priority for all the leading universities in the world, and now it is only becoming more acute. This should motivate Russian universities to compete in the global online environment and invest more in their IT infrastructure.


Since March 2020, more than 3,500 foreign students of FEFU have been transferred to study in the online environment. Students from China who went home for the winter holidays have continued their studies remotely since the beginning of the spring semester. In addition to higher education programs, online training was transferred to the Center of the Russian Language and Culture of FEFU (preparatory and course preparation), students participating in academic exchange programs, and the educational event “FEFU-BRICS International University”.