Mikhail Fedorov was born in 1951 in the village of Nechunaevskoye in the Suzunsky district of the Novosibirsk region in the family of a forester.
After graduating from high school in 1968, he entered the geological exploration faculty at the Sverdlovsk Mining Institute. In 1973, he graduated from the Institute with a degree in Geology and Exploration of mineral deposits, after which he was engaged in social, scientific and pedagogical work.
From 1973 to 1975, he was the secretary of the Komsomol Committee of the Institute, and then an instructor and head of the student youth department of the Sverdlovsk Regional Komsomol Committee, at the same time he studied in graduate school.
In 1982, he defended his dissertation "Geology and paleogeographic features of the formation of bauxites of the Karpinsky district of the Northern Urals" for the degree of Candidate of Geological and mineralogical Sciences.
Long-term work on bauxite deposits in the Northern and Southern Urals, Timan, Kazakhstan and others served as the basis for a major scientific generalization of the material collected over many years. Comparing the age-related formations of aluminum ore in the Urals, M. V. Fedorov came to the conclusion that the formation of bauxite deposits in the region, as well as on the planet as a whole, occurs in a certain sequence and obeys the law of periodicity, which is consistent with the law of D. I. Mendeleev. This law was formulated by the author already in the doctoral program of the Moscow Geological Exploration Institute, in which M. V. Fedorov, under the guidance of Professor S. V. Tikhomirov, studied from 1989 to 1993. These studies formed the basis for the defense in 1993 of a dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Geological and mineralogical sciences ("Periodicity of bauxite formation in the history of the development of the Earth's crust of the Urals").
Since 1993, he has been a professor at the Department of Environmental Economics at the Ural State University of Economics. Here he studied the natural resource potential of the region, prepared a monographic work "Aluminum of the Urals".
In 1995, Mikhail Vasilyevich created a creative team, which included scientists from UGGA and USUE V. Kalashnikov (has more than 200 copyright certificates and patents for inventions), G. Usov, R. Arutyunov, L. Minukhin, L. Azin and a number of others. In 1998, the creative team was transformed into the Ural Scientific Research Institute of Technology and Technology of the Food Industry and Certification (Uralpishchepromsertificate Research Institute at USUE), of which Mikhail Fedorov was elected general director. In 1999, a Eurasian patent was obtained for one of the developed technologies — "Cascade-rotor technology for producing high—grade flour with planetary motion of grinding media".
M. V. Fedorov is one of the organizers of the All-Russian scientific and practical conference "Food industry. Food security — the 21st century" (1999). Since June 2000, he has been the head of the Certification Body for products and services. Together with UNIIM, UralTest, OBLTSGSEN, Uralexpocenter, he organizes the International Congress "Certification Tests of food Products" and the International Exhibition of Analytical Equipment "Food Safety — XXI century".
In 2000, the staff of the Ural State University of Economics, with the support of UGGA (now Ural State Mining University) and scientific organizations, rotational cascade technology with planetary movement of grinding grain products was nominated for the State Prize of the Russian Federation in the field of science and technology, among the applicants also included the rector of USUE V. M. Kamyshov and M. V. Fedorov.
In February 2000, he was appointed Head of the Department of Food Technology at USUE. He participated in the scientific and practical conference on the development of public catering, is the responsible editor of the collection of scientific papers "Cooking as a branch of nutrition at the turn of the XXI century." With his participation, a new specialty "Socio-cultural service and tourism" and a specialization "Restaurant service" are being opened at the department. In 2002, he defended his dissertation for the degree of Doctor of Economics ("System analysis and predictive assessment of the development of the agro-industrial complex of an industrial region: theory, methodology, practice").
From 2005 to 2015 — Rector of USUE. Deputy Chairman of the Council of Rectors of Universities of the Sverdlovsk region. On February 18, 2010, at this Council, he was unanimously elected President of the ANO "Great Eurasian University Complex". He is the editor-in-chief of the journal "Izvestia of the Ural State University of Economics" included in the list of the Higher Attestation Commission, as well as chairman of the editorial board of the scientific and analytical journal "Manager".
Over the years, he was also: Vice-President of the Eurasian Economic Club of Scientists (Astana, Republic of Kazakhstan); Chairman of the Committee for the Development of Vocational Education and Human Resources, Vice-President of the Sverdlovsk Regional Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (Employers); member of the Board of the Ministry of General and Vocational Education of the Sverdlovsk Region; member of the Technical Committee for Standardization "Intellectual Property TK-481 of the Russian Federation; member of the Board of Directors of the European Academy of Retail Trade; an expert at the Analytical Center under the Government of the Russian Federation; a member of the Presidium of the Free Economic Society of Russia; a member of the Board of Trustees of the Issyk-Kul Humanitarian Forum; head of the Yekaterinburg branch of the November 4 Political Action Club (Political Club); Deputy Chairman of the Coordinating Council of the Eurasian Economic Club of Scientists Association.
Honorary Professor of Harbin Polytechnic University (China, 2006), Institute of Economic Research of the Ministry of Economy and Budget Planning of the Republic of Kazakhstan (Kazakhstan, 2008), Kazakh University of Economics, Finance and International Trade and the Association "Eurasian Economic Club of Scientists" (Kazakhstan, 2009).