The authors focus on the issues of scientific migration. This trend is relevant from both an academic perspective — studying the individual’s economic behaviour, as well as practical one, because competition for talent has a significant impact on innovation policy initiatives around the world. Most Russian and foreign researchers are unanimous about the main complication for these studies: the lack of reliable information about scientific researchers’ migration. To search for these data, we have developed a methodology implemented in software based on the big data technology. This software allows to analyse data sets from leading scientific citation bases. The information on scientific migration resulted from the analysis of changes in affiliation. We have collected the data on the scientific migration of researchers employed by the Ural Federal University from the Scopus database. The verification of the obtained data showed their high reliability. Most researchers move to Western European countries and the United States (up to 72 %). The main areas of emigrating researchers’ scientific interests are natural and technical sciences. The optimal approach to minimizing the negative impact of scientific migration on Russia’s scientific and technological security is the practical application of the theory of brain sharing. According to this theory, a large scientific diaspora abroad is an essential resource for the development of science and innovation.

The quality of human capital is a priority factor for the development of modern economy. Apparently, the system of higher education has a significant impact on the human development. There are a number of approaches to assessing this impact and to enhancing its positive outcomes. Studying the professional and social trajectories of graduates allows obtaining an objective picture of a practice-oriented influence of higher education on the human capital formation. The article explores young professionals’ career development six months after graduation. We analyse the characteristics of young professionals’ occupational and educational trajectories through examining the indicators of graduates’ employment monitoring in 2014–2016. The data are supplemented by the results of the graduates’ survey conducted in 2017 using administrative data. The data were processed using the methods of cluster and regression analysis, classification method and expert estimates. We have disproved the hypothesized significant impact of graduates’ performance at the university and their training basis (fee-payment or budgetary funding) on the financial success of graduates. Furthermore, we have identified five tendencies. Firstly, the graduates are increasingly involved in unstable employment. Secondly, working experience has a significant impact on successful employment. Thirdly, graduates continue their training to adapt themselves to the labour market. Fourthly, the financial and social success is highly dependent on the choice of training specialities, which are in demand in the modern economy. And last, there is a high mobility among graduates. Up to 30 % of them are moving to another subject of the Russian Federation. The study results can be applied to improve the quality of bachelor and master degree programmes, taking into account the identified specifics of young professionals’ unstable employment and to determine areas for effective government investment in the development of the Ural region human potential.

Income inequality is an important indicator of the modern Russian economy’s development. Economists and sociologists actively discuss the issues of reducing income differentiation and poverty on the global arena within the framework of approaches studying the so-called “new inequality’. At the same time, income inequality leads to new forms of inequality in household incomes. The article aims to assess the forms in which one generation’s financial success is reproduced in subsequent generations. Moreover, we examine to which extent a university degree provides social mobility. We analyzed the data on income inequality in Russia for the period from 1980 to 2015, presented in the World Database on Wealth and Income (WID), supplemented by the results of graduates’ monitoring we conducted. To process the data, we used classification and expert assessment methods. The analysis of the data on income inequality has revealed the stagnation in middle- and lower-class incomes due to increased incomes of the 10 % richest population. The study’s key conclusion is that investments (both state and private costs from family income) in obtaining a university degree by families with moderate financial success are effectiv e an d justifi ed in t he long term. The applicants from middle-income families require support: in such families, 49% of university graduates already have a similar level of income at the start of their careers, and another 16 % are financially successful. This group’s graduates are motivated to work in their professional sphere after graduation. The results are applicable for optimizing the admission process in leading universities, taking into account the approaches to income inequality. Such method can contribute to enhancing human potential in the Ural region and to ensuring effective investments in the development of higher education by state authorities.