R&D Financing in the Higher Education Institutions at the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine in 2017—2021

Abstract

The article reveals the peculiarities of financing cost-free and close to them research and development (R&D) in higher education institutions (HEIs) of Ukraine in 2017—2021 based on the relationship identified by the author between the financing of R&D in HEIs and the share of cost-free and close to them R&D. The relevance of the study stems from the abnormal spread of such R&D in research organizations and HEIs of the Ministry of Education and Science (MES) of Ukraine. The research methods include systematic and semantic analysis, comparison, correlation analysis, and other techniques for processing parametric series. To conduct the study, the author developed a method for analysing R&D financing in the HEI sector based on the information array of R&D registration cards of the Ukrainian Institute of Scientific and Technical Expertise and Information at the level of individual HEIs of the MES of Ukraine. The author presents data on the number of R&D projects carried out, the amount of R&D funds attracted, the share of cost-free and close to them R&D projects in general, annual expenditures per R&D project. A sample of cost-free and close to them R&D projects carried out by HEIs in 2017—2021 was built and processed. Since the scale of such R&D projects in the MES of Ukraine is significantly higher than in other administrative departments, the criteria for determining the number of HEIs in Ukraine with the status of a research university need to be revised. Clustering of HEIs was carried out in terms of their external characteristics (polytechnic university, pedagogical university, national classical university, etc.), to identify the nature of the relationship between the total R&D funding and the share of cost-free and close to them R&D in general. It was found that the strongest correlation was in the cluster of national classical universities and, to some extent, in polytechnic universities. Additionally, groupings of HEIs consisting of two and three clusters in various combinations were considered. Computations showed that the replacement of the absolute R&D funding by the unit R&D expenditure at the HEI level increased the correlation with the share of cost-free R&D. This indicates the importance of analysis of the number of R&D projects falling on a certain amount of R&D funding. If the correlation between the absolute R&D funding and the share of cost-free R&D is negative, then the greater the R&D funding, the higher is the authority of HEIs with persons taking decisions on R&D funding, and the less is the need for background R&D activity at departmental level of HEIs in competing for R&D resources.