Global promotion of HSE Saint Peterburg scientific laboratory of logistics research: academic and commercial perspectives

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FEDERAL STATE EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTION OF HIGHER EDUCATION

NATIONAL RESEARCH UNIVERSITY HIGHER SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS

Saint Petersburg School of Economics and Management

Department of Management

Bachelor's thesis

GLOBAL PROMOTION OF HSE SAINT PETERSBURG SCIENTIFIC LABORATORY OF LOGISTICS RESEARCH: ACADEMIC AND COMMERCIAL PERSPECTIVES

Konopleva Ekaterina Alexandrovna

Kazikhanova Karina Rustemovna

Academic supervisor Professor, Doctor

of Sciences in Economics E.V. Korсhagina

Saint Petersburg 2020

Abstract

Science popularization is quite an important and perspective activity and direction of study as more and more people understand the significance of science in people's life. Along with the most important fields of science, logistics plays a significant role in the modern world. Moreover, logistics is one of the most innovative spheres of research, as such present trend as digitalization and automatization allow researchers to study various new aspects in this sphere.

The goal of the paper is to create a set of promotional activities for scientific Laboratory of Logistic Research (HSE University, St. Petersburg). In this research we analysed the operational activity of the logistics laboratory of the HSE university. For doing so, two in-depth interviews with the director of the Center for Organization of Science and Academic Development and Academic Supervisor of the logistics laboratory were conducted. After implementation of marketing analysis (SWOT, PEST, market analysis, Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning and Benchmarking analysis) and according to the data gained we suggested a new set of activities for the lab promotion and our recommendations toward their implementation.

As for the research results, there are methods for promotion on the academic market: specific journals to publish researches, grants to apply for, scientific events to participate in and potential research units for cooperation. Also, collaborative projects are proposed for promotion of the lab among HSE students and on the market of commercial orders. Moreover, there are stated events and recommendations for popularization of the results of the laboratory's research to the general public.

Overall, the presented promotional activities contribute to raise of the awareness of laboratory brand as well as the popularity of Higher School of Economics University in international academic sphere and lead to popularization of lab's research results.

Key words: science popularization, logistics, scientific laboratory, promotional activities.

Table of contents

• Introduction
• 1. Theoretical foundation
• 1.1 Science popularization, its role and significance for society
• 1.2 Science popularization and media interaction
• 1.3 Methods used for popularization of science and scientific institutions
• 1.4 Analysis of science popularization cases
• 1.5 Logistics and academic researches in this sphere
• 1.6 Methods of attracting students to the field of logistics
• 1.7 Analysis of the main scientific logistics laboratories and schools in the Russian Federation and the world
• 1.8 Main activities of HSE university in logistics sphere
• 1.9 Analysis of ongoing promotional activities of Scientific Laboratory of Logistics Research
• 1.10 The popularization of science and researches' results in Russian Federation and abroad science logistics laboratory research
• 2. Analysis of situation
• 2.1 Extended SWOT analysis
• 2.2 PEST analysis
• 2.3 Segmentation and targeting
• 2.4 Positioning
• 2.5 Market analysis
• 2.6 Benchmarking analysis
• 2.6.1 Student science center and student design and research bureau of ITMO University
• 2.6.2 The Laboratory of Sociology in Education and Science of HSE University
• 2.6.3 The school of logistics of HSE University (Moscow campus)
• 2.6.4 The BBW Hochschule - University of Applied Sciences
• 2.6.5 The HSE Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge (ISSEK)
• 2.6.6 The Pan-European Institute (Turku School of Economics)
• 2.6.7 LUT University: LUT School of Business and Management
• 2.6.8 Friedrich-Alexander-Universitдt Erlangen-Nьrnberg (FAU)
• 2.6.9 The National University of Science and Technology MISIS
• 3. Project section
• Reference list


Introduction

In recent years, science plays a great role in many spheres of people's life and also serves as an indicator of society development in such fields of life as economics, culture and education (Rutjens, 2018). Various scientific units promote their activities to rise their popularity and increase the awareness of general public toward science. Consequently, a trend of science popularization occurred. Science popularization is a process of spreading science to the general public by using different marketing promotional tools: exhibitions, associations, publications, ect. (Regional Conference of National Commissions for UNESCO, 2nd, Bangkok, 1951). Scientific institutions use different methods in order to popularize their activities. For example, the National Research University Higher School of Economics (further - HSE University) has numerous scientific laboratories that promote their activities differently, but not all of the labs use effective tools of promotion for that purpose. So, there is the need of development of a set of promotional activities for increasing the awareness of that institutions.

Moreover, development of informational technologies contributes a lot to rise of popularity of supply chain management (Bьyьkцzkan, Gцзer, 2018). Due to the fact that digitization facilitates the process of information collection and communication between people and contribute to development of new devices, it influences every industry of modern world (European Commission, 2018). Logistics is not an exception (Pwc, 2019). Supply chain management is extremely connected with new technological changes and innovations, that draw scientists who desire to develop their competencies continuously. Consequently, that popularity causes the appearance of more findings in that sphere and draws more and more researches to contribute to that topic.

Overall, popularity of supply chain management and the trend of science popularization make logistics science laboratories interesting direction for investments and draw researches, but that institutions still need a suitable promotional strategy for it.

Furthermore, science popularization is quite a popular topic and lots of studies are dedicated to promotion of science. They are about various scientific institutions, such as laboratories, or just about different spheres of science. All the mentioned spheres of science popularization have followers and researchers working for that, but natural sciences still is the most popular direction. Therefore, social sciences do not receive due attention. Consequently, the novelty of the thesis is that it is dedicated to the logistics science, as few researches are aimed to rise the popularity of science institutions in that sphere.

At the turn of 19th and 20th century the idea of popularization of science started to appear. In 1990, Stephen Hilgartner notes a dominant view of popularization. He claims that popularizers spread simplified versions of scientific works to the general public that allows them to have public discourse. Speaking about Russia, science popularization is connected with improvements in socio-economic sphere and new reforms in field of science and higher education. At that time Russian writers and publicists A. Herzen, V. Belinsky, N.A. Dobrolyubov and others understood the necessity of making scientific books and articles that are understandable for the reader. Furthermore, development of new social media channels facilitates the delivery of scientific information to society, as media is the main tool in science information spread and it introduces new methods for that.

Speaking about the most popular popularized spheres of science nowadays, natural sciences should be mentioned. One of the most famous popularizers is Stephen Hawking, his sphere of interests is cosmology and physics. He created a numerous number of books that are readable and understandable for the general public. The physicist wrote that books were constructed according to the following rule: “Each formula included in the book will halve the number of customers”. That rule brings his popular science books a huge popularity and raise the awareness of cosmology and physics.

Popular science books are not the only tool to popularize the science, another successful example is the American TV show “Nova ScienceNow”, the host of which was astrophysicist, Ph.D. in physics Neil deGrasse Tyson. That TV show was quite popular and Neil deGrasse Tyson was awarded the NASA Medal of Honor for Outstanding Public Service, NASA's highest civilian award, for his work dedicated to science popularization.

As it was already mentioned, the science popularization and researches in this sphere are quite popular nowadays, but the promotional tools for that are not fully researched. There is a wide range of promotional tools suitable for different spheres and they, if correctly selected, are successful for one or another activity. Various articles and researches are dedicated to that promotional tools, but in case of scientific laboratories, there is a gap in information about it.

The relevant problem of our thesis lies in the fact that existing promotional tools cannot provide that spread of scientific knowledge and the range of these tools are needed to be extended in order to raise the awareness of the laboratory and its researches among students, educational institutions and in international academic sphere.

Regarding the goal of the thesis, it is to develop the range of activities that raises awareness of logistics laboratory situated in the Higher School of Economics university in St. Petersburg in global academic and commercial markets, as well as in internal environment among students of the university, which contribute to popularity of HSE University brand. The tools are carefully picked up according to the target audience, the sphere of laboratory operation and its aims. The implementation of that promotional tools helps the science institution to draw new researchers and students to the lab, get more commercial orders, collaborate with other domestic and international universities and companies and gain the financial support.

The structure of the thesis is organized as follows. Firstly, the paper starts with the abstract and introduction, where we introduce the topic of the research, explain the relevance of the research and other issues. Secondly, the paper includes the part of main body which contains theoretical foundation, analysis of the situation and project section. Theoretical foundation includes all literature related to the research topic, which can help explore areas needed for the study. Analysis of the situation consists of presentation of methods and analyses, which will be used for conducting the accurate paper and make well-reasoned conclusions. The part, that is called project section, presents anticipated results, conclusions and recommendations, which are made on the basis of articles and analyses. Thereafter, the paper ends with a conclusion with summarizing the recommendations, limitations and future research areas.

The tasks of this paper are devoted to the analysis of all the information about scientific laboratory of logistics research in the HSE University which might help the research and propose the suggestions how to promote this lab among other science institutions. The tasks are the following:

· to collect all data from the official website of the laboratory, which allows to obtain clear comprehension about the studying object and to prepare for the interview with its representative carefully;

· to examine the literature on the research topics, that could be relevant and applicable in this case;

· to conduct two interviews: with the director of the Center for Organization of Science and Academic Development and Academic Advisor of the logistics laboratory to gain more detailed information and identify main problems and tasks of the laboratory;

· to analyze the information gathered during the interviews;

· to carry out analyses, which help to investigate the company internally and externally and propose the promotional activities for it: SWOT, PEST, Market analysis, Segmentation, Targeting, Positioning and Benchmarking;

· to provide a range of promotional activities based on the analysis of the findings, give our recommendations on the basis of conducted analyses and supported by well-reasoned arguments.

Concerning the methodology of the research, the first step is to conduct two in-depth interviews with the director of the Center for Organization of Science and Academic Development and Academic Advisor of the logistics laboratory to obtain information about the current situation, difficulties, past and present activities implemented for its promotion. The use of an in-depth interview allows to establish a more trusting relationship with respondent, which creates the prospect of obtaining unique information.

The second step is to conduct the following analyses: SWOT analysis is needed to evaluate the complex internal and external factors affecting the development of the laboratory. Also, with the help of SWOT analysis the laboratory is able to take into account all the risks and create a long-term development strategy in such a way as to attract a great number of specialists and increase the reputation on the academic and commercial markets. The PEST analysis, that is designed to identify the political, economic, social and technological aspects of the external environment that affect the lab's activity, is also included in the methodology, because PEST helps to explore the external market, scientific global trends and conditions which can influence the activity of the lab. The next step is market analysis that allows to identify the specifics, trends, main players of logistics market and kinds of services they provided, to collect data on the activities they conduct. Segmentation is needed in this research to identify the parts of the market to which the promotional activities are directed. The next stage is targeting, which helps to highlight the groups of audience on which the activities of the laboratory are orientated. Positioning is needed to create the general representation of the lab and its activities. Benchmarking serves as analysis of the experience of the other scientific institutions, universities, laboratories, schools as in the similar or other fields of science to identify best practices, take into account their strengths and weaknesses and try to apply some ideas into the future promotional activity of the logistics lab, avoid mistakes and enhance weak sides of others. The following step is to analyse the results of various analyses. The final step is to provide findings, recommendations regarding the promotion activities and conclusions.

As for the object of the research, it is operational activities of the laboratory, as well promotional ones. The results of current promotion of the lab shows not high enough popularity. Furthermore, there is a little number of students who are aware about the existence of this logistics laboratory. In consequence, this issue is needed to be researched and analyzed to make the further conclusions and work on improvements. Regarding the subject of the research, it is the way of promotion of the logistics lab's activity and its projects with focus on its advantages in order to attract more people. Mostly, it refers to current promotional activities and tools that are used by the laboratory. These points should be researched and lead to detection of possible ways to develop and promote the laboratory's activities and services.

The practical significance of the study is concluded in solving the real case of the HSE scientific laboratory of logistics research, which will be done based on analyses and well-reasoned arguments and thereafter, other scientific institutions, like scientific centers and laboratories, can use this research to improve their promotional activities. Also, there is a contribution to science by raising the popularity of lab and attracting students, specialists and financial resources in logistics. The great number of new people and money attracted helps the lab to evolve its ideas, sets the stage for discoveries and achieves global scientific results and possibility to win grants for the further researches. Underdevelopment and obscurity of laboratories is truly serious problem nowadays, as all laboratories should have ways and options for developing their projects and ideas, because science labs create plenty of things and test many experiments and innovations that change the lives of people around the world and there are technologies that simplify and improve life (Rutjens, 2018). Solving this problem, namely, increasing the awareness and popularity of this laboratory, do not only attract students, specialists and financial resources in the field of logistics, but also increase the importance and status of the HSE University, its reputation and recognition in international academic sphere.

In perspective this study could be valuable for other scientific institutions like laboratories, schools, universities, which have the same task of promotion and popularization. This study's recommendations would also be used by not only logistics laboratories, but also by other scientific institutions. Institutions have the possibility to compare their situation with this logistics laboratory's situation, conduct the range of similar analyses of themselves and implement some recommendations from the research that contribute to their promotion positively. Scientific laboratories and other institutions may use this experience to distinguish advantages and disadvantages of its situation before improvements and after. This way they are able to analyse and understand if recommendations and advice provided for improvement of the particular lab suit them.

Speaking about the subsequent development of the thesis, this topic may lead to the comparison of market of academic researchers with the market of goods and services. In this case some business promotion strategies can be tried to be adapted to academic sphere and some methods may be beneficial for science popularization and laboratories promotion. Furthermore, as we are aimed at exploring of promotional activities for global academic market suitable for HSE logistics research laboratory, future researches may be dedicated to development of more detailed strategy toward any channel of promotion, for example, Internet or media. Moreover, the promotion of Laboratory inside the University may be observed. Though, our research is dedicated to external promotion, the laboratory may rise its reputation by conducting interdisciplinary researches and cooperation with other HSE scientific units.

1. Theoretical foundation

Further, for analysis of the previous findings on this topic the following aspects of literature review are considered: the basis of the concept “science popularization” from history to present and its significance in nowadays life, interaction between science popularization and media, methods that are widely used for popularization of science, cases on science popularization, logistics and academic researches in this sphere, methods for attracting students in this sphere of science, analysis of logistics schools and laboratories, characteristics of HSE Scientific Laboratory of Logistics Research, analysis of its current promotional activities, popularization of science in Russian Federation and abroad.

1.1 Science popularization, its role and significance for society

The term “science popularization” was firstly used in 19th century and it appeared at the times, when science began to be identified as a professional activity (Bensaude-Vincent, 2009). Furthermore, Bensaude-Vincent notes that it was a long process of term meaning formulation and at the outset it was used to show “the hegemony of professional practice”. At the same time, Topham states that popularization of science was not only about the communication with public, the concept was continuously reconstructed and reformulated. Firstly, as the term began to extend, science started to embrace some practices, that lately was considered as superstition (for example, meteorics science and study of meteorites). Secondly, there were attempts to assimilate the old forms of science, for example, the followers of some forms of natural history, such as fossilists or botanists, began to be considered as science.

In addition, Karol Franczak (2016) is also interested in sphere of science popularization. In his research he distinguishes the meaning of two similar-sounding terms: “popularization” and “populization”. According to the author, the first term refers to a traditional work of academic elite and also aimed to share the scientific knowledge to the general public by modifying the academic language to the acceptable for the general public form. Another concept, called “populization” was defined as the process when administration of knowledge is losing the monopoly position. Karol Franczak identifies science popularization as a consequence of media development and growing demand of its recipients. As people started to desire to gain information about some complex concepts of science, author points the problem of knowledge “oversaturation”, when numerous scientists began to participate in spread of information to the wide audience.

Speaking about present situation, nowadays science popularization is quite a popular direction of researches, as more and more people understand the significance of that sphere of life. Important scientific achievements appear because of work of many scientists from various countries. As science is one of the most significant source of knowledge, their work allows to solve people's everyday life problems, facilitates life a lot, improves the quality of education and life in general (Commission of the Russian Academy of Sciences on Science Popularization, 2019). Moreover, science should take into account the needs of people and helps them to overcome various global problems. Popularization of scientific knowledge and, consequently, the general understanding of the role of sciences attracts society to participate in scientific life that, in their turn, play a leading role in the formation of skills and knowledge that help every person to make informed choices in personal or professional issues (Regional Conference of National Commissions for UNESCO, Scientific and Cultural Organization, 1951).

1.2 Science popularization and media interaction

Speaking about relationship between scientists and media, Hans Peter Peters (2013) is quite concerned about it. According to the data he got, a great number of scientists consider visibility in media and reaction to the journalists as an extremely important activity for their work. Moreover, author notes that such “professional duty” usually reinforces the universities and other scientific organizations and raises their popularity. He states that in 1970 there was a norm that scientists should be discouraged from media due to the fact that their appearing in public have a risk to ruin their academic reputation. In the period of time between 1980s and 1990s that norm was rarely occurred. The author notes that at that time lots of scientists started to interact with the journalists and some researches was really motivated in that. Talking to the general public became not a rare exception but a widely used activity and Peters points out that was the great impetus for science popularization. Speaking about present situation with media integration in science, author claims that now there is a strategic orientation of scientific activities toward media and there is a pattern of long-standing interaction of science and media. To support his argument, Peters presents the results of his own survey of 1354 biomedical researches from five countries: United States, Japan, Germany, The United Kingdom and France. In that research the frequency of scientists' interaction with journalists, norms of scientific community, impact of media visibility on scientists' reputation and the consultation requirements before scientist and media interaction were observed. According to results, in general scientists' and media interaction usually occurs about 1-5 times a year, scientists prefer to communicate with serious media using very quality reporting on scientific topic, as for the media's impact, the most frequent answer was positive and consultations before the interaction are held with the help of external collaborators.

Furthermore, according to the research of Wei Hong and Yandong Zhao (2016), they are interested in social media influence on development of more research works and, consequently, its contribution to new scientific discoveries. The goal of their research is to find out whether the cooperative relationships with media benefit to scientific activities in China. Authors claim that the cooperation may be useful in two ways. The first one is about the fact that gathering of new information and knowledge improve human capital and contribute to patenting and publishing activities. Another way is to use social media channels for obtaining grants and awards that, in their turn, benefit the scientific performance. Wei Hong and Yandong Zhao mention that scientists who communicate with media usually are likely to get patents than people who don't. Also, that makes researches cooperate between each other more, which contribute to wide and deeper works. Speaking about international contacts, authors notice that they allow researchers to get and bring new information, such as innovative ideas and latest developments in various spheres of science. Moreover, writers identify the gender gap in publication activity, as they only find out the fact that females are rarely get awards and patents, though there is no significant difference between genders in general scientific performance.

Overall, authors notice their uncertainty in future interaction of science and media but claim that the development of new media tools provides science and science popularization good opportunities for future development.

1.3 Methods used for popularization of science and scientific institutions

As it was already mentioned, nowadays science popularization is very connected with media, but still it is not the only way to popularize knowledge.

It's common knowledge that there are numerous spheres of science and, according to that fact, various methods of popularization. As Associate Professor in Moscow State University, Department of Philosophy Ph.D. S. Medvedeva (2015) says in her interview, there is no a universal method that can be beneficial for every scientific sphere. The professor claims that for promotion of some ideas in scientific community such methods as conferences, professional journals or creation of a specialized literature for training university specialists can be used. As for non-scientific community, scientist can publish school textbooks in a popular form to spread their knowledge among younger generation. Moreover, Medvedeva notes that new methods of science popularization are developing in the West, the aim of which is to create a dialogue between scientist and the general public. According to her words, the perception of the public changed: earlier the society was presented as passive and ignorant group of people, but nowadays they are considered as various groups with different preferences and interests. The professor claims that this fact should be taken into account while choosing the method of popularization.

Speaking about other methods of science popularization, Bensaude-Vincent (2009) agrees that methods for science popularization should be chosen according to the science specific and points out that there are lots of methods for spread of information to the general public. They are: written materials (books, periodicals), personal and interactive communication (lectures, guided tours, exhibition, shows and other commercial areas).

Furthermore, more innovative and unusual methods of science popularization occur. For example, the TED talks are a quite popular source of scientific information for general public, as the language of exploration of scientific facts is very clear and understandable for audience. Giuseppina Scotto di Carlo (2014) investigates features of TED talks as a tool of popularization. The author claims that this format of science integration break ordinal “science-mediator-audience” way of knowledge and make scientists directly contact the audience. By this way of communication speakers establish close and friendly relationship with audience. As for the finding of the research, author identifies the role of humor in the speech, as it makes atmosphere more positive and informal. Also, Giuseppina Scotto di Carlo claims that telling about personal experience contributes to more involvement of listeners, as well as simple and clear form of speech. Overall, author writes that the relationship between the speaker (science) and the audience (general public) is not fortuitous, it is a set of specific features that allows to establish a sense of community between them, witch change the old passive way of information perception to the new idea that science should be discussed.

Moreover, according to the interview with Vice President of the Russian Academy of Sciences Alexei Khokhlov (2019), there is a need in specially trained specialists who are able to implement suitable methods of science promotion in order to transfer scientific knowledge to general public successfully. Such specialist should be good at natural science as well as in journalism. Alexei Khokhlov claims that there is a demand in specialists with such skills.

1.4 Analysis of science popularization cases

The history knows many examples of people, who dedicated their life to science. One of the most popular scientist and science populariser is Stephen Hawking, who studied physics, gravity, the universe and black holes and achieved a huge success (J. Preskill, 2018). He tried to make such difficult topics and phenomena of science understandable for as much people as possible. For that goal he wrote a bestseller book “Brief history of time” in which he told about his theories and cosmology in the simplest way. (Alferov, Z., academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences, winner of the Nobel prize in physics, kommersant). Then he participated in creating documentary miniseries, called “The universe of Stephen Hawking” and others, which are devoted to his theories, the universe, gravity and black holes (RIA news or Kommersant).

Unfortunately, there are some people who like to exaggerate their abilities and achievements. Such example presents Italian neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero who attracted media attention in 2015 after his announcement that in 2017 he can to perform the first successful human head transplant. In 2017, Sergio Canavero announced that the first head transplant was performed successfully. The operation was performed by him and a team from Harbin medical University (China). However, doctor Ren Xiaoping himself denies the operation success to transplant the head of a corpse and stated that the head transplant of a dead person cannot be considered an operation at all (RIA news). Hence, as Canavero did not have any evidences of his words and the articles he published did not contain reliable evidences and details, people, who hoped in seriousness of his words, stopped to believe and understood this is just a dangerous experiment.

One more good example of science popularization is promoting the introduction of a space popularization policy in European countries and the USA. It is well-known fact that space programmes are under hard budgetary pressure, as new president of the USA Donald Trump announced about reduction of US revenue taxes to 40% in the closest ten years. (Cole, 2016). This means that the budget of NASA and many space projects and researches will dramatically decrease. However, many explorers and authors point out the significance of space exploration and popularization of space policy in EU. (Hoerber, 2017). The start of this policy promotion begins from space policy workshops called ESSCA in collaboration with Italian space agency and university Tor Vergata, which were visited by many researchers and practitioners, who have papers proposals regarding this topic. The workshops' outcome was in the range of offered ideas. One of the proposed one was that science-fiction series Star Trek, which is a great tool of space popularization among people, as it is really famous and has many fans, it was set in this universe that points the importance of researches, which is needed to convey to people who follows (Alalinarde, 2016). Furthermore, one more scientist Antonella Forganni proposed paper about the opportunity of space tourism becoming the way of space popularization. She discussed law and political issues connected to this concept and space commercialization. But as there is positive tendency and progress in space exploration and tourism, it leads to positive conclusions about confirmation of such way of space popularization. There were also surveys dedicated to the use and consequences of geo information services popularization to achieve the goals of EU, specifically, become the sustainable, strongest and inclusive economy and how to help European space industry with value-added to became economically viable and how to contribute to the use of data collection tools for Earth observation (Kerstens, Giannopapa, 2017). This tendency may be considered as part of space popularization via providing most number of people with applications from space technology.

All in all, all the researches listed above can indicate that many people care about science popularization. They conduct the surveys to prove the significance of expanding the science among people and possible great impact for the development and enhancement of the world.

1.5 Logistics and academic researches in this sphere

To develop the tools for global promotion of the St. Petersburg's Logistics laboratory (HSE University), it is required to open up the important and popular issue: logistics and researches in this field.

Science is developing very quickly and consists of a large number of fields of study (Topham, 2009). One of the most innovative sphere is logistics, as such present trends as digitalization and automatization suggest researchers more and more new directions of study in this sphere (Bьyьkцzkan, Gцзer, 2018). Many large companies all over the world both industrial or trading are interested in development of knowledge in supply management, as companies considered logistics as an integral component of complex organization's strategy. Especially St. Petersburg, being one of the biggest transportation hub in Russia, will benefit from new researches in that sphere.

As for Logistics meaning according to Cambridge Business English dictionary, it is “the process of planning and organizing to make sure that resources are in the places where they are needed, so that an activity or process happens effectively”. It includes “planning, execution, and control of the procurement, movement, and stationing of personnel, material, and other resources to achieve the objectives of a campaign, plan, project, or strategy”. From the point of management, logistics can be considered as a strategic management of material flows in the supply process: procurement, transportation, sale and storage of materials, parts and finished inventory (equipment and other things). Logistics is aimed at optimizing costs and rationalizing the process of production, sales and related services both within a single enterprise and for a group of enterprises. Logistics includes in all levels of planning and execution which are strategic, operational and tactical (CSCMP - Council of Supply Chain Management Professional, 2010).

There are dozens of scientific laboratories in large and well-known universities whose activities are devoted to the study of the most complex disciplines and sections of different sciences, which is a very important part for researches and discoveries for each university. There is also a wide range of researches in logistics sphere (Maloni, 2015). Michael Maloni stated that researches in this field of study are quite collaborative and this phenomenon contributes to a progressive development of this discipline. The author notes that it results in the fact that more scientists publish their work in journals on logistics topic. As for the academic institutions, Rao (2013) claims that academic institutions nowadays are becoming more and more important in spread and creation of knowledge and contribute to increase of importance of generated knowledge.

Logistics is an industry with the range of difficulties on the way of its development in the modern world such as shortage of qualified specialists with theoretical and practical logistics experience, the non-use of modern technologies, management issue and irrational development of distribution system of goods and services. The surveys devoted to modern logistics can help to solve the current problems. For example, one of such concept is considered to be Internet of things. And as Pawel Tadejko (2015) said that, it can reduce the disadvantages of some logistics areas. It can help the next areas: monitoring, logistics operations effectiveness, production, supply chains modelling, security and others. Moderns logistics is developing fast using RFID technology, which is cheap and simple. However, the Internet of Things can give the accurate information about products in order to provide reliable data for forecasting, making decisions and making logistics market analysis. The experts argue that innovative logistics is considered to be one of the keys in economics development. Many Western countries focused all the efforts on modernizing transport logistics, rather than storage logistics. Modernizing of transport logistics, according to many foreign experts, turned out to be more effective, since the main thing in reducing the cost of logistics services is the minimum time for storing products in warehouses and the process of loading and unloading.

1.6 Methods of attracting students to the field of logistics

Logistics is the underlying component of even each firm's operating (Holcomb, Krul, and Thomas, 2015). Supply chain and logistics is second-fastest growing industry and this area is quite a good perspective for working there, however, the growth is not so high enough, as college graduates do not prefer this field to work (Harrington, 2015). To solve the problem with attracting students to this field, it is needed to identify: the expectations of students about their future work, offers of the field of logistics which meet expectations of students, the way of delivering advertising messages to engage students in a better way and how the adaptation jobs be done in the logistics field to satisfy needs of students. (Maloni, M., Scherrer, C., Campbell, S., & Boyd, E., 2016).

While selecting a major, students have had incomplete information about major options yet (Walstrom et al. 2008). The research is based on values of work, which have a great effect on worker perceptions, positions and relation. The exploratory factor analysis (EFA) is conducted for categorizing values into factors. Five of them are taken from the existing research, which assesses the distinction of the generations in work values, the rest two are from related studies and feedback of students and practitioners. To sum up, the factors include “intrinsic, extrinsic, altruistic, social, and leisure, supervisory and stability” (Luscombe, Lewis, and Biggs 2013). The student survey proposed to respondents, who are the students from business and industrial engineering (IE) undergraduate programs to assess 22 work values according to their ideal work and also define the level of impact of concrete resource on the college major decision. The final dataset of the survey consists of 1620 students, as it distributed electronically. The results show students regard as most important work value for their work to include intrinsic (learning), extrinsic (promotion chances, financial aspect) and stability (pension guarantee, privileges and security of future). The lowest factors are leisure (holiday) and social characteristics (friendship, communications). The most influential reasons of college major choice were family, experts of business and research in the Internet. Students need to have better understanding of logistics in realities, thus, there some options proposed: structured and well-organized internships in the earliest years of education, partnering with professors, academic programs and professional companies to integrate logistics site visits, applied projects, and case studies with class work. Also, universities can provide students opportunity to obtain practical experience about ways to getting promotions and the social networking significance in the workplace (Goffnett et al., 2012).

Aforementioned studies are focused on the general analysis of science popularization and despite this term becomes widespread among most spheres of life, there is a gap in a range of marketing tools for promoting logistics laboratories. This topic is needed to research, as logistics is rapidly developing science which contributes to effectiveness and impressive results, especially when it is implemented in companies' activity. Due to sanctification of the logistics and its importance, the laboratory and activities that it may perform will lead to the enterprises' interest and then attracting new clients and scientists to the laboratory.

1.7 Analysis of the main scientific logistics laboratories and schools in the Russian Federation and the world

Scientific research laboratory allows researchers to conduct experiments and other scientific works in order to explore research spheres. That can be laboratories that are attached to a university or they can be a part of Scientific Research Institute, which is a public institution that was specially created for carrying out various scientific researches on different spheres of science. Both types of laboratory operation provide researchers with the possibility of cooperation with other scientists who work on border issues and interaction with each other.

Maria Yudkevich (2014), Vice-Rector of Higher School of Economics and the Head of the Laboratory for Institutional Analysis of Economic Reforms, claims that research and educational laboratories are points of the academic growth that can be usually formed by a team of professors, researches, graduate students or students for implementation of research works in various scientific spheres. She also mentions that HSE laboratories are created on the principles of horizontal academic cooperation, which means that the participation of students in the research work is equal to the participation of more experienced colleagues. These principles make beginner researchers feels like a part of adult academic world, which is rather beneficial for beginners' future professional development.

HSE school of logistics (Moscow) also adheres to these principles in its research activities. The school teaches students various areas of logistics, such as logistics management in business, strategic management in logistics sphere, innovative logistics technologies and digital logistics. Numerous research works are created by students and contribute to the development of logistics sphere. For example, works are dedicated to new and innovative logistics solutions, contemporary approaches and process optimization. School of logistics cooperate with such well-known companies, as IBM, SAP, Itella, Avon, Toyota Motors and Microsoft Business Solutions.

The school also has joint international projects and researches. For instance, Higher School of Economics has been a member of the European Logistics Association (ELA) since 2001 and researchers of the school carry out different works dedicated to the logistics topics. Several research studies were carried out according to the interaction with this association, they are: market monitoring and analysis of best practices of creating logistics infrastructure in Russian and European countries, the key projects from that interaction are, for example, about ecological problems of logistics in Eastern Europe (2014) and creation of a network of logistics centers of the Baltic region countries (2016). Students and professors of the school participate in scientific conferences and cooperate with international partners for creating and presentation of their researches.

As for the international partners, School of Business "ESB" University of Reutlingen (Germany) has one of the most developed laboratory of logistics researches. A key facility of ESB Business School is the Training and Research Centre Added Value and Logistics Systems (WLS). Various topics on such current areas of research as added value systems, intra logistics, engineering, and supply chains are analysed there. In cooperation with scientific partners researches in the School of Business contribute to the practical solutions and their implementation in companies. Moreover, work with experts and colleagues from other disciplines and departments helps them to achieve synergy in their actions, as interdisciplinary approaches facilitate the solving of complex tasks in more beneficial way. The main aim of the faculty is quite practically oriented, it is to improve the regionalized added value structures globally on the market and adapt them to the needs of the future.

School of Business "ESB" University of Reutlingen has a remarkable infrastructure with laboratory equipment for productive researches. The most outstanding one is so called “Werk150” which is a set of equipment which copy a model of productive company. This “company” has its industrial value chain with changing products and services portfolio. It copies real live processes of system engineering, incoming goods, process of storage, picking pf orders and others. Werk150 benefits in applied researches due to opportunity of developing new methods, tools and innovative technologies and possibility of testing them in practice.

Overall, the ESB School of Business cooperates with industry and other universities of applied logistics researches in their projects and due to the great amount of student projects and brilliant research facilities contribute to the development of supply chain management.

Though, there are lots of research laboratories in universities around the word with numerous areas of study, among which there are not so many specialized logistics laboratories. Lots of logistics researches are conducted on management or business departments of universities and their laboratories, as logistics direction of study is still developing. Nevertheless, quite up-to-date directions of movements exist in this sphere. For instance, there are a special membership “Women in logistics & transport” in The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (London) which aim is to promote a logistics industry to females and support them. The institute provides international education in supply chain, logistics and transport. Though, it doesn't have a specialized research laboratory, numerous researches are carried out on logistics, it has international partnership with specialized universities and with logistics associations, also various memberships, for instance, for supporting young specialists, eventful social life and a range of grants and awards for studies.

Overall, as logistics sphere are becoming more popular, we can expect the growth in researches in logistics sphere and, consequently, growth of the number of logistics research laboratories, which now is not so big in the world. Nonetheless, such features, as great technical facilities for researches, international partners and contacts with universities and associations, social life full of scientific events, well financial support and progressive logistics field view will be beneficial for further logistics research lab development.

The data for this chapter was gathered from the official web sites of the Universities: HSE school of logistics (Moscow), School of Business "ESB" University of Reutlingen (Germany), The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport (London).

1.8 Main activities of HSE university in logistics sphere

As it was already mentioned, our research is focused on promotion of scientific Laboratory of Logistic Research in Saint-Petersburg (HSE University), that is why it is necessary to evaluate activities of HSE University in the field of logistics. All information presented in this chapter is gained from the official website of Higher School of Economics.

Speaking about logistics research laboratory in St.Petersburg, its main activities are : (1) organizing of teaching courses on logistics and supply chain management as additional education, (2) conducting logistics researches and realization of projects by orders of enterprises under contracts, (3) participation in international research programs in logistics and supply chain management; (4) support of strategic development aims of the university, (5) carrying out of fundamental scientific researches in the field of integrated logistics and SCM; (6) publicizing and promotion of the scientific journal "logistics and supply chain management" recommended by the WAC of the Russian Federation, and joint activities with international publications; (7) development of international relations and implementation of joint international projects and programs in the field of education, scientific and project research on logistics and SCP; (8) implementation of consulting activities and author's and corporate programs for professional development and retraining in logistics and SCP of scientific and technical employees of enterprises on a commercial basis under contracts.