Roman Popov

Introduction. World-class scientific and educational centers (REC MU) are considered as special social organizations that form one of the promising social institutions in Russia. REC MU are becoming one of the real opportunities to achieve a synergistic effect in the formation of human capital. They are regarded as analogues of think tanks that are dynamically operating in the West and are gaining strength in the countries of the East. The purpose of the article lies in a sociological analysis of the activities of the REC MU and the identification of the prospects for their development as drivers for the formation of the human capital of Russians on the basis of turning to values and motivations, supporting creative and talented Russian youth.Methodology and sources. The methodological basis of the study was formed by the principles of analysis of social institutionalization, which allow studying the activities of the REC MU as an emerging new social institution with its own rules, norms, reflection and self-regulation. Another part of the methodological principles concerns the consideration of human capital as associated with the value-motivational attitudes of the individual. The empirical base was made up of data from the open press on the structure of activity and the problems of activity, the results of the author's empirical research and expert interviews with the leaders of the REC MU.Results and discussion. The first result is to fix and analyze the directions and orientations of the activities of the REC MU, which at the normative level form a common system of routes and strategies for their development. The data of this analysis were obtained as a result of the study of publications. The second result of the study fixes the vectors of the reversal of the activities of the REC MU in the direction of the formation of the human capital of Russians in the regions where the REC MU have been created. The data of this result were obtained as a result of summarizing the materials of the author's empirical study of one of the operating universities included in the REC MU. Another result of the study, obtained as a result of expert interviews with leaders and managers of 12 REC MU, shows the problematic field of the institutionalization of these centers.Conclusion. REC MU as a specific social institution are going through the stage of their formation. As for the activation of the human capital of the regions, this will require additional efforts and potentials, the development and implementation of modern methodologies and technologies for educational activities and information work, in particular, with student youth. The existing gap between value-motivational structures and their exclusion from the system of analysis of human capital is scientifically untenable, but in a practical sense it negatively affects real activity.

Introduction. The upcoming digitalization is perceived and understood differently by students of technology faculties. This becomes more obvious in the context of pandemic, when the older generation often assesses this offensive negatively, and the technical students – with understanding, and often with enthusiasm. What are the advantages and problems with the emergence of digitalization in the social space of society in the eyes of young people focused on technical education? To what extent are the advantages and benefits of digitalization understood in a professional and social sense? What is the depth of the contradictions and the unity of social and professional awareness of digitalization? – the answer to this question, as the main goal of the study, is discussed in the presented article.Methodology and sources. The research methodology is formed on the basis on a set of studies. They are devoted to the study practices of the social formation relations among students, molded on social networks, mobile devices and the Internet. It is obvious that society is faced with revolutionary changes of an epochal order, the direction and nature of which is poorly consistent with some methodological principles, theories and concepts that have developed. Therefore, the methodological attitudes of researchers are represented by a multi-paradigm approach. These changed circumstances also predetermined the strategy and methodologies of the pilot empirical study, which can be defined as qualitative.Results and discussion. The results of the study show the existence of contradictions between the actual involvement of technical students in digitalization, on the one hand, and the lag in understanding the social contexts and social meanings of digitalization in the life of society, on the other. Empirical results confirm that in practical terms, students are included in digitalization. They are well expanding the range of professions related to IT technologies, new professional groups are emerging, professional differences in the features of the activities of engineers who worked in earlier periods in comparison with the activities of modern engineers due to digitalization are outlined. However, the awareness of the impact of digitalization on social processes and social stratification, the emergence of new forms of social inequality, and the general understanding of society as digital is formed with some delay.Conclusion. The results of the study show the ambiguity of the perception of digitalization by engineering students. The real dynamics of the digitalization process is ahead of social perception and awareness of the realities of the development of modern Russian society. Students are more clearly aware of and positively assessed the technical and technological advantages of digitalization, while the social consequences of digitalization are assessed somewhat passively and according to a limited range of problems. The awareness of the onset of digitalization in the student environment does not reflect the totality of the reality of the numerous social aspects of digitalization.