The aim of this study is to examine the correlation between the amount of international students in Russian universities with the positive changes that occur in a Russian student’s human capital, and their neighbourhood areas, especially in public spaces. We aim to support the hypothesis that a network of “internationalized” universities serves as a revitalization measure for a city, facilitating the development of its surrounding areas, and reducing political and social risks within a society. Research methods for gathering data are: deductive trend search, which uses a literature review from leading academic journals and the empirical study based on the created questionnaire. This questionnaire forms a dataset which consists of a number of master courses held in English from one of the leading Russian universities based in Moscow. In this paper, we explain the research design and the results of a long-term project which we expect to complete in Russia in 2016. | Measuring influence of internationalized universities on smart city development in terms of human capital and urban aspects