Purpose The purpose of this paper is to analyse critically the Russian Academic Excellence Initiative (the Project 5-100), designed to propel five leading Russian universities into world university rankings (WURs) by 2020, and research it through the lens of neoliberalism. The paper seeks to reveal recurrent discourses and dominant orders of discourse constituting the overall concept of “excellence” in Russian higher education (HE) policy. Design/methodology/approach Since the Project 5-100 has been designed in line with a neoliberal model of academic excellence initiatives, emphasising “competition as a driver of excellence” (Hazelkorn, 2009), Fairclough’s approach to critical discourse analysis (CDA) has been adopted as a qualitative research method. There is no universally accepted definition of “excellence” in HE policy; therefore, this CDA also aims at revealing the Russian government’s vision of the concept and its voice in HE policy. Findings The paper concludes that the government reinforces neoliberal discourse on the HE agenda and transforms the 5-100 Universities’ identities through emphasising the role of WURs in modernising the HE system. Consequently, within the neoliberal paradigm, the Project 5-100 can be regarded as a manifestation of the commodification of “excellence” in Russian HE policy. Originality/value This research intends to broaden knowledge of excellence initiatives in HE policy and reveal their features and neoliberal natures. It also seeks to contribute in terms of showcasing a qualitative study of the Project 5-100 for future comparative analyses of similar HE policies.

中文翻译：

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卓越的学术成就被称为俄罗斯高等教育中的“竞争力增强”

目的本文的目的是对俄罗斯学术卓越计划（5-100号计划）进行批判性分析，该计划旨在到2020年将俄罗斯的五所领先大学推向世界大学排名（WUR），并通过新自由主义的视角对其进行研究。本文试图揭示构成俄罗斯高等教育（HE）政策“卓越”整体概念的循环话语和主导语篇。设计/方法论/方法自项目5-100的设计符合学术成就倡议的新自由主义模型以来，强调了“竞争是成就卓越的驱动力”（Hazelkorn，2009年），费尔克洛的批判性话语分析（CDA）方法被作为定性研究方法。在高等教育政策中，“卓越”没有公认的定义；所以，该CDA还旨在揭示俄罗斯政府对该概念的看法及其在高等教育政策中的声音。结论本文得出的结论是，政府通过强调WUR在现代化HE系统中的作用，加强了关于HE议程的新自由主义话语，并改变了5-100所大学的身份。因此，在新自由主义范式中，“ 5-100工程”可以看作是俄罗斯高等教育政策“卓越”商品化的体现。原创性/价值这项研究旨在拓宽高等教育政策中卓越计划的知识，并揭示其特征和新自由主义性质。它还试图就展示5-100项目的定性研究做出贡献，以便对类似的HE政策进行未来的比较分析。