Many governments attempt to improve national higher education through the competitive support of universities. These policy approaches raise questions about the impact on the entire system—both in research and educational—of targeted support for a small number of universities. Addressing challenges in the measurement of university excellence initiatives are among the most vital topics in research evaluation due to the central roles they often play in national research and university policy efforts. Using data from the Russian University Excellence Initiative (RUEI), we measure the spillover effects of such focused support and demonstrate that a broader impact does exist. In particular, we examine the performance of higher education institutions that were not part of RUEI and were not directly supported by it. We compare the university performance in regions both with and without RUEI universities. In doing so, we measure the indirect impact of RUEI on the higher education sector at the regional level. We show a positive effect on the level of publication activity that has recently become apparent. However, there has been no effect on the share of young faculty, international collaboration in publications, or the quality of enrollment. Judging from the broader research policy\research evaluation perspective, our study sheds light on the systemic effects of excellence initiatives, which are often neglected. Besides, excellence initiatives could trigger a change in the approach to evaluating research. So government should develop measure properly, taking into account various consequences, some of which are considered in our article.

中文翻译：

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几所一流大学的政府支持是否会对高等教育系统产生更广泛的影响？俄罗斯大学卓越计划评估

许多政府试图通过大学的竞争性支持来改善国家高等教育。这些政策方法引发了对少数大学有针对性的支持对整个系统（研究和教育方面）的影响的质疑。解决衡量大学卓越计划方面的挑战是研究评估中最重要的主题之一，因为它们经常在国家研究和大学政策工作中发挥核心作用。利用俄罗斯大学卓越计划 (RUEI) 的数据，我们衡量了这种集中支持的溢出效应，并证明确实存在更广泛的影响。特别是，我们研究了不属于 RUEI 并且没有直接得到它支持的高等教育机构的表现。我们比较了有和没有 RUEI 大学的地区的大学表现。在此过程中，我们衡量了 RUEI 对区域层面高等教育部门的间接影响。我们显示出对最近变得明显的出版活动水平的积极影响。然而，对年轻教师的比例、出版物的国际合作或招生质量没有影响。从更广泛的研究政策\研究评估的角度来看，我们的研究揭示了卓越计划的系统性影响，这些影响往往被忽视。此外，卓越计划可能会引发评估研究方法的变化。因此，政府应适当制定措施，考虑到各种后果，其中一些在我们的文章中进行了考虑。