This paper deals with economic security of Russian regions in the light of the country's entry into the World Trade Organization. Different approaches to defining regional economic security, an assessment of competitiveness of Russian regions in comparison with the regions of Europe on selected indicators of competitiveness are presented. The paper considers the determinants of competitiveness of the region through various theoretical concepts. Based on a review of empirical and theoretical literature, the tools and ways of increasing the economic security are identified: diversification of export basket in designated areas, encouraging the formation and development of industrial clusters, attraction of foreign investments that generate positive externalities and leading to increased competitiveness of domestic companies.

The authors designate three problems in frames of this paper. First, to analyze the level of research activity of the best Russian universities at the start of the most important stage of higher education system reform — basing on the results of 2009-2010 and to assess what kind of resource they have received at their disposal from the state. Second, to understand which areas of research potential and how should the leading universities try to influence. Third, to assess the gap in the area of research and development potential that exists between the classified leading universities and other ones, to formulate ways to bridge this gap on the example of the Ural region. The approach to the assessment of research and development activity of the universities is suggested to solve these problems of comparison of methodologies for evaluating research results of universities in global rankings of higher education institutions. Basing on the results and conclusions, four key directions for significant growth of international level of scientific productivity of Russian universities are formulated.