Innovators: Advantages and Disadvantages of the Future Profession from the Perspective of Students

Abstract

Development and implementation of innovations in different fields of human life becomes a driving force of economic development of any country in the modern world. Russian higher educational institutions are enrolling students for the Innovatics course to train future innovators. This raises a logical question - who is an innovator and what is he/she dealing with?

The purpose of the survey discussed by the article was to identify students’ opinions - the future innovators – on advantages and disadvantages of their future professional activity. Using a longitudinal method, two groups of students who took the Innovatics course (bachelor's degree) have been monitored for four years, which allowed identifying the students' opinions on both how they imagined their future profession, and how this opinion had changed throughout the period of study.

Key methods of the research were general scientific cognition methods, such as theoretical analysis of different positions on such area of knowledge as Innovatics and the profession of innovator, as well as empirical methods, such as observation, interviews and questionnaires.

The surveys of students obtained data on not only the advantages and disadvantages, which, according to future innovators, are associated with their professional activities, but also on what would be interesting for them to learn in the course of their professional activity.

Key competencies to be formed in the process of Innovatics training were listed to make the innovators-graduates demanded in the labor market.