RESEARCH ACTIVITY AND INDUSTRY COLLABORATION AS FACTORS OF SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT OF HEIS IN INDUSTRY 4.0 CONTEXT
Abstract
Within the Industry 4.0 environment, higher education institutions are one of the main actors participating in activities related to sustainable development, such as knowledge production, human capital development, and technology exchange, as well as solving societal and economic problems. Furthermore, the existence of strongly developed universities positively influences regional productivity, green innovation intensity and financial results of companies in the private sector. However, the empirical foundation of the role of research and collaboration with industry stakeholders for achieving sustainable development goals by the universities remains limited. For that, a regression analysis is conducted to assess the relationship between the developed University-Industry-Research composite index and Times Higher Education Impact Rankings score for higher education institutions of the European continent. The composite index was developed following the Principal Component Analysis method using six variables from European Higher Education Sector Observatory, namely PhD intensity, publications per academic personnel, share of publications in 10% top-cited, EU-FP project cooperation intensity with industrial partners, share of copublications with industry partners, and share of international joint publications. The regression analysis has demonstrated the existence of a statistically significant positive relationship between the composite index and Impact Rankings score. Additionally, the influence of the national environment of the institution on its capability to achieve sustainable development goals was observed. The results of the study confirm the role of research and industry collaboration in achieving sustainable development goals by higher education institutions. The study provides an empirical foundation for developing recommendations to promote sustainable development in higher education through increasing the volume and quality of research activities and developing partnerships with industry stakeholders and international colleagues.
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