An economic impetus for enhancing employability support across higher education in Russia

Achieving economic development through the development of skills is a policy priority throughout Eastern Europe and Central Asia (International Labour Office, 2016a) and it is
with the ILO that the Russian Federation’s tripartite constituency of government, employers’ and workers’ organisations recently signed a new Programme of Cooperation (International Labour Office, 2016b). Continued improvements to general education are essential in the long-term while, for the short-term, higher education has a particularly important role to play as graduates take up managerial roles across the Russian Federation. This research focuses on just one aspect of that much broader initiative with the ILO, by addressing the issue of employability-related support for higher education students. While progress has already been made, with three Russian universities in the global employability rankings list, further international opportunities to collaborate with other universities exist through initiatives such as the Erasmus+ scheme in Europe, the Generation Study Abroad initiative in the USA and via
the BRICS consortium of rapidly developing nations. These three options alone accommodate over 80% of the top-ranked universities worldwide for employability and such collaborations could help embed additional seeds of economic growth in Russia.