Adaptive Development of Higher Education Based on the Project-Oriented Approach

Abstract

The article considers the results of studies, carried out by the authors within the framework of a state order from the Russian Ministry of Education and Science. The authors unify such notions as “higher education”, “higher educational establishment”, “organization”, “higher education as an open system”. The authors characterize the process of open system adaptation, define the notion of “higher education adaptive development” and give its basic characteristics. Having analyzed some system-wide principles they have outlined the principles of adaptive development of an organization. Regarding the process of managing organization development as activities aimed at maintaining target-oriented changes in the organization parameters and properties in response to the current (anticipated) changes in the external environment, the authors suggest the following hypothesis: if adaptation involves changes based on the principles of cyclicity and impermanence, activities of an organization can be represented as a bulk of projects, aimed at achieving certain targets and goals and limited in time. The Project-Oriented Approach is shown as a methodology of management, helping to link together the linear management of an organization (a permanent process) with managing goal-oriented projects (provisional management structures). This approach helps to assess the adaptive development indicators of a higher educational establishment as a subject of the socio-economic sphere.

DOI: 10.5901/mjss.2015.v6n4s1p230