COOPERATION BETWEEN HIGHER EDUCATION INSTITUTIONS AND BUSINESS

At the post-industrial stage of society’s development, the main economic resource is new knowledge, which forms intellectual capital, providing the possibility of obtaining super-profits in the knowledge economy. However, the conditions for the emergence of new knowledge are transforming, which significantly changes the conditions for the functioning of higher education institutions (HEIs). Diversification of funding sources and areas of research is essential for the successful functioning of higher education institutions in these conditions. The university becomes the main pillar of productive forces in the knowledge economy – a project university, a quasi-corporation. In this status, the university quasi-corporation abandons the supplier-consumer relationship with corporate business and enters into equal partnerships with it. The university also influences the definition of strategic directions of state regulation of the economy. The university can and should act as a large (often ‘transnational’) business entity that operates for profit and has a significant impact on the socio-economic development of the region. At the same time, the state defines the strategic goals of the university-business tandem, provides a rational regulatory framework, regulates university-business communications, and ensures compliance with the ’rules of the game’, taking into account the emerging geopolitical and macroeconomic conditions. The article substantiates the relevance of an expanding approach to the interpretation of cooperation between higher education institutions and enterprises, which proposes to consider cooperation between universities and businesses not as a set of isolated transactions within a limited range of areas of interaction, but as a system of long-term mutually beneficial relations with a wide range of possible types of cooperation, which may also include government and public organisations. The article analyses the types of joint activities of universities and businesses within four blocks – education, research, valorisation (commercialisation of knowledge and technology) and management – which can serve as a basis for developing a system of indicators for assessing the effectiveness of cooperation between universities and businesses. The author concludes that it is necessary to adjust the state policy in the field of science and education in order to reduce the imbalances in the development of these areas of cooperation both in Ukraine and in Europe.