Higher education has complex roles in society, the economy, and politics; it helps to transmit culture, transfer knowledge, and develop the personality of citizens. This diversity of roles is confronted with the limited resources that are related to the sources of financing, that is, students and their families, the national government, and local authorities, among others. The discussions related to the role of universities concern the economy of knowledge and the digital tools influencing education. The specific case of St. Petersburg universities simultaneously represents the impact of the deep socio-political transition from Soviet society to the liberal principles of a market economy, including the perception of higher education institutions as service sector companies. The services allowed by universities include research and training; however, from the consumer point of view, universities should create specific value: the increase of the intellectual components of human capital. These complex functions are interconnected. During 2017–2018, a survey in St. Petersburg was organised to ascertain the opinion of students, professors, and employers on the quality of education. The results of the survey demonstrate the impact of the exaggerated implementation of the liberal principles on education, both positive and negative. The positive effect is the renewing of content and innovative training techniques due to competition among universities. The negative impacts include the preference for popular disciplines and the opportunistic behavior of students that lose their passion for acquiring knowledge and choose instead the passive attitude of consumers of a competitive service. They are less interested in the sphere of their studies, in searching for a job, in the interaction with other social and economic actors, and even in the research and education options presented by the universities.

Social isolation during the pandemic contributed to the transition of educational processes to e-learning. A short-term e-marketing education program for a variety of students was introduced in May 2020 and is taught entirely online. A survey was conducted regularly in the last week of training using Google Forms, and three cohorts were surveyed in July, September, and December 2020. A high level of satisfaction indicates an interest in the content and a positive assessment of the level of comfort of an organization adapted to the needs of students; this positive result contrasted with the negative opinion of the remote learning in Russia since March 2020, and this surprising satisfaction of students has motivated the study to try to explain its reasons. This result was compared with the short-term course taught through the educational pedagogical platform of a university. The students of traditional short- and long-term university programs were asked to assess their satisfaction with different digital communication tools used for e-learning. They showed low satisfaction with the pedagogical platform and a positive reaction to the e-communication tools (messengers, social media, short surveys, video conferences, etc.). The qualitative responses helped to better understand the real problems of the cognitive process and the triple structure of intellectual production during e-learning, including interest in the intellectual outcome, the need for emotional and motivational elements of cooperation and competition between students, and smooth behavioral enrichment, which requires special efforts from students and their leading from teachers. The main conclusion concerns a practical decision to continue the implementation of the educational program in the form of an online course with the use of the mixed digital communication tools of social media, messengers, and video conferences, which most likely meets the expectations and capabilities of students.

The training and education systems can utilise the neuro-web and neuro-technologies for communicating and transferring knowledge and competencies and for correcting problems in the reality' reflection, perception and understanding. The advantage of neuro-communications is built on the capacity to detect directly individuals' perverse behaviours or attitudes, and to influence directly the emotions, feelings or sensations. The implementation of the neuro-technologies for the educational purposes permits one to adapt the process of getting and applying knowledge and skills with a higher level of individualization and concretization. Understood in this wide sense, the education or training process is similar to the socialisation, the knowledge and experience transfer concerns any situations of learning, as well everyday situations in the organisational or economic behaviour, in professional growth and in the social construction of networks of cultural activities. This paper aims to contribute to the analysis of the neuro-technologies within the knowledge transfer through the conceptual study of the potential ways of the neural networks' implementation to exchange the skills and competences and to communicate the experience of a student towards a teacher, taking into account that in different moments any of the roles can be played by the actors.The purpose of this conceptual analysis is to structure the approaches of the neurocommunications and to configure the ethical vision of the potential, carrying out the neuro-research, in cognitive economics or in the knowledge transfer.

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The article analyzes the issues of neuromarketing theory and practice applied to education. Frameworks for marketing activities at the modern university are to be expanded due to new challenges. The urgent need to understand the emotional side of the educational process has led to the search for new approaches and tools for academics and practitioners. Neuromarketing is an emerging field that bridges the study of marketing with neuroscience. The importance of the multidisciplinary approach to the problems of modern education is emphasized. The article presents a modern approach to neuromarketing research and its innovative information about neurophysiological reactions during the process of educational activities that helps to enhance its performance. The basic directions of neuromarketing and neurobiological research in education are demonstrated: imbedding neuromarketing in the list of disciplines for a number of economic and managerial training areas; the implementation of neurobiological research results and recommendations concerning the audience's attention, students' engagement, creating teaching materials, instructional websites, e-books and courses, presentations and media, assessment of learning outcomes; using the neurobiological research results in the university marketing activities (advertising campaign, building brand awareness, etc.). The article summarizes the main issues of the neuromarketing studies in education and its implementation based on new research methods such as the Zaltman Metaphor Elicitation Technique (ZMET) and biofeedback.