Igor Chirikov

Igor Chirikov is the Director of the Student Experience in the Research University (SERU) Consortium and Senior Researcher at CSHE. SERU Consortium is an academic and policy research collaboration based at Center for Studies in Higher Education at the UC Berkeley working in partnership with Etio and member universities. The Consortium is a group of leading research-intensive universities that increase student success by generating and analyzing comparative data on the student experience.

As SERU Consortium Director Igor Chirikov has broad responsibilities for overall SERU Consortium coordination, research and development. This includes coordinating the SERU North American and International Divisions, directing the SERU research priorities and development projects, and exploring new approaches to the use of data to assess the student experience.

Throughout his career, he has successfully balanced research, teaching, and senior leadership roles in higher education. He has experience in designing and implementing large-scale international research projects in higher education, including randomized controlled trials (RCTs). His research involves student experience and learning outcomes, the use of technology in universities and international comparative higher education. His papers were published in Science Advances, Nature Human Behaviour, PNAS, Studies in Higher Education, Educational Researcher and other journals.

Key Publications

• Chirikov, Igor. 2023. Does conflict of interest distort global university rankings? Higher Education, 86(4), 791-808.
• Loyalka, Prashant, Ou Lydia Liu, Guirong Li, Elena Kardanova, Igor Chirikov et al. 2021. "Skill levels and gains in university STEM education in China, India, Russia and the United States." Nature Human Behaviour.
• Chirikov, Igor, Tatiana Semenova, Natalia Maloshonok, Eric Bettinger, and René F. Kizilcec. 2020. “Online Education Platforms Scale College STEM Instruction with Equivalent Learning Outcomes at Lower Cost.” Science Advances 6(15).
• Loyalka, Prashant, Ou Lydia Liu, Guirong Li, Igor Chirikov et al. 2019. “Computer science skills across China, India, Russia, and the United States” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 116(14), pp.6732-6736.
• Chirikov, Igor, Evgeniia Shmeleva, and Prashant Loyalka. 2019. "The role of faculty in reducing academic dishonesty among engineering students." Studies in Higher Education: 1-17.
• Oleksiyenko, Anatoly, Qiang Zha, Igor Chirikov, Jun Li (eds.). 2018. International Status Anxiety and Higher Education: Soviet Legacy in China and Russia. Springer: CERC Studies in Comparative Education Series.
• Klemenčič, Manja and Igor Chirikov. 2015. How Do We Know How Students Experience Higher Education? On the Use of Student Surveys. In Remus Pricopie, Peter Scott, Jamil Salmi and Adrian Curaj (eds.) Future of Higher Education in Europe. Volume I and Volume II. Dordrecht: Springer. (November 2015).
• Chirikov, Igor. 2013. “Research Universities as Knowledge Networks: the Role of Institutional Research.” Studies in Higher Education 38(3): 456-469.