Two Artificial Intelligence Modules: How Russia Is Reshaping Higher Education by 2026/27

The pilot of the new higher education model began in 2023 at six universities. In January 2026, it was extended through the 2029/30 academic year and expanded to 17 universities. Participants include MAI, NUST MISIS, Moscow Pedagogical State University (MPGU), the Baltic Federal University (BFU), Saint Petersburg Mining University, TSU, FEFU, Bauman Moscow State Technical University, MIPT, Pirogov Russian National Research Medical University, UrFU, Tyumen State University, and others. According to the Ministry, the pilot involves 581 educational programs, and about 42.5 thousand state-funded places have been allocated for first-year cohorts.

The new framework provides for basic higher education lasting from four to six years and a specialized level with advanced professional training. Doctoral (aspirantura) programs are separated into a distinct level of professional education.

The reform will be scaled up gradually: for certain groups of specialties, the transition is planned to begin in 2027. But the change most noticeable for students is related to AI. In June, Minister of Science and Higher Education Valery Falkov proposed embedding two mandatory modules into the new model. The first is a basic module, uniform for all students and intended as early as the first year. The second is professional: the application of AI within a specific specialty. For an engineer, this may involve industrial data and digital models; for a doctor, intelligent decision-support systems; for an economist, analysis and forecasting; for a humanities student, working with large corpora of texts.

The basic module is planned to be tested in the same 17 pilot universities. For it, the Ministry intends to create a teaching-and-methodological association together with the Alliance in the field of artificial intelligence, as well as a unified digital platform and a student support system.

The main question now is not whether AI will come to universities—it is already there. The question is different: will education be able to teach students to use it as a tool for thinking, rather than a substitute for thinking. The Ministry acknowledges that this will require large-scale retraining of faculty and new academic rules.

This is precisely why the Russian experiment is of interest to an international audience as well. It is simultaneously testing a new structure of higher education and an attempt to make AI literacy a core graduate competency. If the model proves sustainable, the changes will affect not just individual pilot campuses, but the entire system of workforce training in the country.

Author: Associate Professor at the Higher School of Production Management, Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University, expert of the Russian Academy of Sciences Olga Lebedeva.