Features of the organization of innovative activities in Russian HEI

The global trends in the field of higher education to reduce public funding of universities, increased requirements for the quality of the educational process, have resulted in the need to expand the basic functions of universities. Increasingly, this situation is due to the changing perception of higher education as
a public good and the role of the university in the national economy. Innovative activities in universities is not so much a new global trend as a natural process. Penetrating and superimposed on the basic directions of activity of the university, innovation proses exalts them to a qualitatively new level. However, the greatest interest and everyone's attention was riveted to the innovations in the research field, while the innovation in other areas: educational and administrative, remains unnoticed and undervalued. The aim of this work - to study of innovative activity in Russian universities in all its manifestations. The study analyzes innovation in leading national universities, determined the effect of innovation on the core functions of universities, identified the factors hampering the development of innovation in higher education.