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Professor Isak Frumin

Prof. Dr. Isak Frumin

Head of Observatory of Higher Education Innovations
School of Business, Social & Decision Sciences
Campus Ring 1 | 28759 Bremen | Germany
Email Address
ifrumin@constructor.university
Office
Reimar Lüst Hall 149
Research Interests
  •  Higher education innovations
  •  Education technologies  
  • Agency in life trajectories
  • Conflict resolution
CV

Academic Degrees

  • 1979 Diploma in mathematics (with honors). Krasnoyarsk State University.
  • 1981-1983 PhD student. Department of mathematics. Moscow State University. Stopped because of Soviet Army service.
  • 1990 Ph.D. (Candidate of sciences) (Education), Latvian State University.
  • 2001 Doctor of Sciences (Doctor Habilitat) (Education), Russian University of Pedagogical Science (Saint Petersburg).
     

Work Experience

  • 1983-1987 Director (and one of the founders) of Summer School for gifted students in physics and mathematics and Assistant Professor, Department of Mathematics, Krasnoyarsk State University.
  • 1987-1999 Founding Principal of Krasnoyarsk University Laboratory School (first of this kind in Russia) and Professor of Education (and the head of the department of pedagogy from 1994) at Krasnoyarsk State University.
  • 1999-2011 Lead Education Specialist, The World Bank (activities in Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan, Nepal, India).
  • 2003-2011 Adjunct Professor of Education at Moscow School of Social Sciences (teaching on joint program with Manchester University) (part time)
  • 2012 – 2021 Professor, vice-rector for strategy and international relations (till 2015) and founding director of the Institute of Education, National Research University “Higher School of Economics” – first graduate school of education in Russia.
  • 2012-2016 Advisor to the Minister of Education and Science of Russian Federation (part time)
  • Since June 2022 Head of Observatory of Higher Education Innovations, Constructor University Bremen (former Jacobs University Bremen)
  • Since June 2023 Professor, Department of Higher Education Research, University of Continuing Education, Krems, Austria (part time)

 

International Fellowships

  • 1994 Visiting Fulbright Scholar. University of Washington. Seattle.
  • 1996 Visiting Scholar. Lancaster University, UK
  • 1998 Visiting Scholar, University of Indiana, Bloomington
  • 1997, 1998, 1999 Visiting Scholar. University of Hawaii, Honolulu.
  • 2012 Visiting Scholar. MIT, Boston
  • 2022 Visiting scholar. Boston College

 

Academic awards and services

  • Fellow of International Academy of Education
  • Member of Global Education Deans Forum
  • Award for the Best Research in Education in Russia (2004, 2013)
  • Founding member of Global Observatory Higher Education Changes
  • Member of Advisory Council of UNESCO Institute of Information Technologies in Education
  • Member of the editorial boards of 11 journals
Selected Publications (Recent Books)

1. Dobryakova, M., Froumin, I., Barannikov, K., Moss, G., Remorenko, I., Hautamäki, J. (eds) Key Competences and New Literacies. UNIPA Springer Series. Springer, Cham. 2023

2. Chakseliani M., Fedyukin I., Froumin I. (Eds.) Research mission of teaching universities. Palgrave Macmillan. 2022

3. Altbach Ph., Reisberg L., Salmi J., Froumin I. (Eds.) Accelerated Universities: Ideas and Money Combine to Build Academic Excellence. Brill-Sense Publ. 2018

4. Carnoy M., Froumin I., Leshukov O., Marginson S. (Eds). Higher Education Governance in Federal Countries. Sage, 2018

5. J. Huisman, A. Smolentseva, I. Froumin (Eds). 25 Years of Transformations of Higher Education Systems in Post-Soviet Countries. Reform and Continuity. Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.

6. Carnoy M., Loyalka P., Dobryakova M. S., Dossani R., Froumin I., Kuhns K., Tilak J. B., Rong W. University Expansion in a Changing Global Economy: Triumph of the BRICs?. Stanford : Stanford University, 2013

7. How Сan Education Become the Driving Force of Socioeconomic Development? - ed. by Ya. Kuzminov, I. Froumin, and P. Sorokin, HSE University, 2022 

8. Russian Schools: the Early 21st Century - ed. by S. Kosaretsky and I. Froumin, HSE University, 2022 
9. Adult Education in Russia: Never Stop Learning - ed. by I. Korshunov and I. Froumin, HSE University, 2022 

 

Selected Publications (Recent Articles)
  1. Frumin, I., & Kalgin, A. (2025). Digital Transformation and Growth in Germany’s Private Higher Education. International Higher Education. https://doi.org/10.6017/895b9e0d.3e80046c 

  2. Xiao, J., Bozkurt, A., Nichols, M., Reinders, H., Tlili, A., & Burgos, D. (2025). Venturing into the unknown: Critical insights into grey areas and pioneering future directions in educational generative AI research. TechTrends, 69(5), 582–597. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11528-025-01060-6

  3. Frumin, I., & Platonova, D. (2024). The socialist model of higher education: The dream faces reality. Daedalus, 153(2), 178–193. https://doi.org/10.1162/daed_a_02073

  4. Frumin, I. (2024). The cost to education development: A personal story. International Journal of Educational Development, 109, 103089. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2024.103089

Projects
  • Study of European private universities in the context of digital transformation
  • Study of Generative AI dissemination in higher education
  • Study of the role of universities in the development of constructive conflict resolution skills
Research group

Foresight of Digital Skills in Azerbaijan

2024
Funded by Innovation and Digital Development Agency of Azerbaijan

Analysis of the trends in the digital skills demand and supply in Azerbaijan. Development of policy recommendations for the government and skills providers.

Private Higher Education in Germany

2024-2025

Research project examining the landscape and trends in private higher education within Germany's educational system.

Green Deal for Central Asian Universities

2024-2028
Funded by EU through Erasmus+ program

The GDCAU project, uniting 13 universities across Germany, Slovakia, Austria, and five Central Asian nations (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan), aims to transform universities into drivers of societal, cultural, and technological shifts in line with the European Green Deal framework.

How Universities Navigate Generative AI

2024-2026

This project aims to explore how universities are responding to the rapid and widespread adoption of generative AI. The discussion will focus on the interplay of three key forces: the adoption of generative AI by individual actors, institutional (university) governance, and system-level governance. It is framed by an understanding of both the transformative power of genAI development and the uniqueness of universities as organisations and higher education systems. We expect the project to contribute both to the conceptual understanding of the changes and challenges of genAI for universities and to the understanding of the evolution of higher education systems in a comparative perspective (insights from country-specific case studies from Brazil, China, Germany, India, Kazakhstan, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Turkey, the UK and the US).

How AI Transforms Science: Newcomers with AI Expertise in Research Teams

2024-2026

This project examines how genAI specialists are integrated into existing research teams and how their expertise is reshaping scientific work and team dynamics. Through interviews and observations, we will explore the role genAI plays in both scientific discovery and the broader research enterprise, from writing to project management. The study bridges AI4science with research governance and organisational studies, and contributes to academic conversations about science policy and team-based knowledge production.