Ecosystem-Type Universities’ Formation Dialectics and Its Influence Over Future Specialists

Abstract

The object of our research is the ecosystem-type universities (mainly in Russia), which are being actively formed and prospectively developed in this country. The article aims at studying their formation dialectics as influencing future specialists. The authors take Hegel’s interpretation of the dialectical analysis (the comprehension of opposites in their unity), when two mutually suggestive opposites can only be understood through their “other”. In today’s postmodern consciousness, ecosystems create conditions for resolving these contradictions. We also use interdisciplinary synthesis in ecosystem and epistemological modeling of students’ “profiles”, thus logically explaining the importance of the university ecosystem influence over forming students’ cognitive and professional competencies. The scheme of cognition is metaphorically presented as a construct of “disenchantment-disclosure of the world” on the natural basis of the cognitive process, which has social and individual components. Figuratively, the process of cognition is depicted as an opportunity to discover and fill in semantic gaps in the learning process. The authors model the construction of an ecosystem-type university, wherein the analog-digital space is made up of vertical and horizontal control parameters. Such a university is firstly an innovative education system, which forms individuals able both to manage the flow of specialized knowledge and to intellectually outstrip artificial intelligence. Secondly, it is an analog-digital continuum, and the contours of direct and reverse, formal and informal connections in such an ecosystem provide all the agents with new opportunities for cognitive development. The methodological foundations for our research are chosen according to the importance of understanding the cognitive transformations and opportunities formed in ecosystem-type universities.This paper might be of value for representatives of the academic community and for university leaders.