Derevnina T.V.

Social roles and importance of educational communities of higher academic institutions in collaboration with the key actors of urban strategic partnership. Purpose. The goal is a meaningful definition of the role and capacity of the educational communities of higher education institutions in Yekaterinburg as participants in a strategic partnership in managing the development of the Ural megalopolis. Methodology and methods. Sociological study of the problem is based on the methodological principles of community approach, rests upon the theory of resource dependence, human capital, elite. The authors used empirical data obtained using the methods of the analysis of documents, biographies, expert interviews. Results and conclusions. In the article educational communities of universities are defined as key partners of the megacity management, able to get in the development and implementation of its development strategy. The authors revealed four main social roles of University communities, localized in space of the metropolis expert participation and control, investigation of the problems of the city, an educational consulting and educational services, reproduction of the urban elite. the results of a study of the opportunities and challenges of implementing these social roles of scientific-pedagogical, administrative and student communities, institutions of higher education were presented. The results of the study provide a contribution in a larger study of the development of the educational communities of the metropolis in terms of social uncertainty. In practical terms, they can be used to make recommendations for optimizing the interaction between educational communities with other urban communities: programs for development of inter-institutional relationships between education, governance, business at the level of municipality. Scientific novelty. In the article the authors introduced experience of studying urban strategic partnership through the prism of community approach. The made an absolutely new attempt to develop «a role formula» of the educational values and developing communities of universities in cooperation with local authorities.