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.

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.