The subject of the research presented is the phenomenon of university leadership and its conditions and factors.

The study is based on “success stories” of leading universities in various countries: Harvard and Stanford Universities (USA), Massachusetts Institute of Technology (USA), Shanghai Jiao-Tun University (China), Bombay Indian Institute of Technology (India), Pohang University of Science and Technology (Korea), National Research University Higher School of Economics (Russia).

We can conclude that universities became leaders if they managed to “ride the wave” of important changes for society and support the deployment of these processes, as well as use their energy and the emerging opportunities. An important factor is the activity of key partners that support the development of a leading university – professional communities, the authorities, government agencies and large companies.

The impact of leading universities on the development of the regions and countries in which they are located is discussed: they form elites; create an educated society, grow professionals; produce and distribute new knowledge, technological, organizational and institutional solutions; directly develop the economy through the creation of new enterprises and jobs. Leading universities initiate cooperation on a regional and global scale; solving the problems facing humanity; they set new purports and goals which impart the energy to movement into the future.

In the history of universities, various options of their relations with the state can be traced: partnership of universities and authorities or state domination over universities. It is also possible to combine the realization of the strategic interests of the state with broad freedom and high activity of universities, creating “on their own bodies” promising practices for the future. At the same time, the situation in Russia is characterized by the actual absence of “universities as communities”, possessing a high level of academic autonomy, having their own vision of the prospects for the economy, technology, science, education and formulating own independent strategies.

The study was supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research and the Krasnoyarsk Regional Fund for Support of Research and Research-Technical Activities in the framework of the project «Regional Intellectual Ecosystem (R&D, Education, Innovations) for the Krasnoyarsk Krai: a scientific and methodological analysis of new opportunities for education, research and innovation in the digital world frame; development of a system model of the “intellectual ecosystem” of the region; development of a digital platform as the basis of this ecosystem" № 18-410-242007.