Institutional Capacity of the Higher Education System and Factors of Its Provision

Abstract

The article is aimed at revealing the state of the institutional system of higher education in Ukraine in the context of the coronavirus pandemic by using the category of institutional capacity. To this end, the following methodological achievements of economic research are used: the unity of logical and historical, normative and positive analysis; institutional and evolutionary approach; logical modeling; behavioral economics; and political markets theory. Based on the authors' definition of the institutional capacity concept, the main features of the institutional capacity of the higher education system are specified, namely: internal complementarity of the institutional system; its external complementarity; interlinking internal and external complementarity. The analysis shows that the Ukrainian higher education system is experiencing a deep multilevel crisis, the origins of which lie in the fact that the government lacks the following: a systemic vision of modern higher education problems; understanding of the close relationship between the level of state support and the dynamics of national competitiveness; absolute dominance of fiscal motivation over the strategic one while solving the problems of financing the needs of higher education. The results obtained provide an opportunity to further study the ways of inhibiting destructive processes, then neutralizing them and, finally, creating the preconditions to restore institutional capacity. The practical significance of the study lies in the fact that it enriches scientific ideas about the structure of the institutional system of higher education and, on this basis, helps to develop managerial decisions aimed at improving the efficiency of the system. The originality of the article is stipulated by using the institutional capacity category and the institutional complementarity concept to study the current state of higher education in Ukraine.

Keywords

• coronavirus pandemic
• higher education
• institutional capacity