Russian universities have overcome the decline in international cooperation

Russian universities have significantly increased the level of international contacts in recent years, Rossotrudnichestvo told Izvestia. In 2023, they participated in 19 educational exhibitions organized by the agency in 14 countries, and in 2025 this number has almost doubled: 33 exhibitions are planned in 25 countries.

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In the 2025-2026 academic year, Rossotrudnichestvo (the operator of the first stage of the selection of candidates for studying foreigners within the quota of the Russian government) received more than 78 thousand applications for studying in Russia under the quota from the government — they came from 177 countries around the world. In 2022, there were 47.7 thousand such applications.

In 2025, there will also be a surge in reports of partnerships with foreign educational institutions, according to analysts at Pressindex (which monitors the media and social networks). So, this year (from January to July) there were more than 133.3 thousand such news. For the same period in 2024 — 96.8 thousand, in 2023 — 75.6 thousand, in 2022 — 65.1 thousand. In the pandemic year 2020, the number of publications on cooperation between universities in January-July was 9.7 thousand.

Read more in the exclusive Izvestia article:

Bright thoughts: the international work of universities has returned to the pre-pandemic level