Iryna Kalenyuk

The formation of knowledge economy issues of leadership is being actualized in today’s global environment under the influence of globalization. An important aspect is the provision of subjects of various levels of intellectual leadership, which means achieving a high position in the competition due to high quality and intensity of the implementation of intellectual resources. The purpose is to justify methodological approaches to the assessment of intellectual leadership and to analyze its manifestation at the level of intellectual resources. The object is the processes of competition and achievement of intellectual leadership of countries in the global environment. The methodical approaches to the evaluation of intellectual leadership of different subjects at three levels (resources, results, outcomes) are offered. The intellectual leadership of countries at the level of resources is empirically analyzed by using the methods of comparative, system-structured, quantitative and qualitative analysis.
By the level of intellectual leadership of the first order (accumulated intellectual resources), 32 countries have been identified as leaders, including highly developed countries and emerging active players. The unconditional leaders are the United States and China, whose relative figures are lower due to the large GDP and the population. Norway and Sweden have the highest presence in all TOP lists (6 indicators), in the second place – Finland and Switzerland (5 indicators), Australia, Brazil, New Zealand at all share the third position (4 indicators). Developed countries are predominantly leaders in terms of the formation of intellectual leadership. Outsider countries get on the list of leaders by individual indicators.

The modern approaches towards higher education systems management often tend to focus on separate universities’ performance, lacking the systemic view of the overall higher education systems’ competitiveness. Thus, the policymakers often fail in tailoring the higher education strategies to the mission of higher education in contemporary society.
The article focuses on providing a systemic insight into the global competitive positioning of the national higher education systems. Based on the suggested ranking methodology, the authors perform the evaluation and ranking of 94 higher education systems, highlighting the limitations of this method, and the cluster analysis, identifying 3 types of their competitive positioning: leaders, followers, and underperformers. Based on Pearson coefficients of skewness and kurtosis calculation, the article shows that globally the inequalities in terms of higher education enrolment rate are decreasing, while those of R&D institutions quality and university-industry collaboration in research remain unchanged. Therefore, upgrading higher education quality assurance systems becomes the main strategic priority for the developing countries in terms of ensuring their higher education systems’ competitiveness. Given the levelling of higher education attainment and its quality worldwide, the authors anticipate further specialization of the universities and broadening of their role within the national innovation system. The article shows that the more comprehensive the approach for evaluating the higher education systems performance – the better the policymakers may benefit in terms of higher education strategic management.

Type of the article: Research Article

The purpose of this article is to evaluate the current state of collaboration between universities and businesses, identify obstacles, and propose solutions based on international experience, regional characteristics, and the challenges of Ukraine’s post-war economic reconstruction. The article examines the role of universities in smart development, using international experience and the results of an original sociological study conducted in Ukraine in 2025 as a reference point. The empirical basis includes two surveys: one of local authorities with 111 respondents and one of businesses with 300 respondents. The research methodology uses descriptive statistics and binary logistic regression to determine the factors that influence cooperation between higher education institutions (HEIs), local authorities, and businesses regarding smart and sustainable development. The results demonstrate the structurally weak integration of universities into local smart development ecosystems. The study’s originality lies in identifying the main obstacles to developing cooperation between universities, businesses, and local authorities: bureaucratic barriers, inflexibility, and outdated management systems in local authorities and higher education institutions; and a lack of initiative and incentives for cooperation among all stakeholders. The article confirms the insufficient awareness of Ukrainian universities’ role as drivers of socioeconomic development and their potential to become powerful agents of change if their innovation and entrepreneurial capacity is strengthened. The practical significance of the results is to identify areas for improving interaction and overcoming obstacles. The key to doing so is strengthening through digitalization, which will transform the participants and their internal structure, as well as all communication and interaction between them.