Crisis communication and internet penetration: Cross-country evidence with illustrations from Moldova and Armenia

As an upper-middle-income country, Armenia should develop and implement targeted policies, such as increased R&D investments, education reforms, and industry-academia collaboration, to enhance its innovation performance. Strengthening these areas is expected to contribute to higher Global Innovation Index (GII) rankings, reflecting improved national innovation capacity.
This study aims to estimate the impact of various GII components (including pillars, sub-indices, and sub-pillars) on the overall GII and pillar scores for upper-middle-income countries. Based on these findings, the study seeks to identify Armenia’s key policy priorities and provide targeted recommendations for enhancing its innovation performance. This study employs a cross-sectional regression to analyze the factors influencing GII scores in upper-middle-income countries, assessing the impact of sub-indices, pillars, and sub-pillars. The analysis reveals that market sophistication and creative outputs strongly influence GII scores among upper-middle-income countries, contributing significantly to national innovation performance. Additionally, knowledge and technology outputs, human capital and research, and infrastructure pillars show a statistically significant impact at the 5% level. Notably, even minor improvements in innovation output sub-index scores account for substantial variations in GII rankings. These findings suggest that Armenia should prioritize targeted education reforms, increase R&D investment, and strengthen university-industry linkages to enhance its innovation ecosystem and improve its global competitiveness.

Acknowledgment
The research was supported by the Science Committee of the Republic of Armenia within the framework of the project No. 21T-5B234.

The widespread use of information and communication technologies and subsequent transformations have led to the formation of a digital economy (DE). The European Union, as an international organization, has become the subject of building such an economy, striving to bring member countries closer in the field of digitalization.
The aim of this paper is to compare the DE development parameters of the EU countries based on cluster analysis and determine the most significant of them to solve the problems of bridging the digital divide between countries. For clustering, a feature DE vector of 20 indicators was created and the k-means algorithm and the Euclidean distance metric were used. For classification, the decision tree method was applied.
Three clusters of EU countries were identified by the level of DE development (leaders, followers and outsiders), which allowed assessing their positions relative to each other. Key parameters that determine countries’ positions in the general rating are identified. A parameter chart is generated to control the establishment of DE in the EU countries, which, in addition to key parameters, includes maximum, minimum and harmonic mean values of these parameters by cluster. This characterizes the landscape of DE development in the EU countries, assesses the digital divide and is the basis for decision-making in the area of bridging this divide.

The relevance of this study lies in the growing shift to online education for displaced universities due to war-related disruptions. The aim is to identify barriers faculty and students face in such institutions and propose strategies for creating a barrier-free educational environment. The study employs a survey-based method, analyzing responses from 224 students and 71 faculty members of a displaced Ukrainian university.
Results highlight significant economic barriers, with 79% of students reporting financial difficulties affecting access to stable Internet, modern devices, and essential resources. Virtual isolation was noted by 79% of students as a challenge in maintaining social connections, while 78% cited reduced motivation characterized by the dominance of avoidance motives. Faculty reported psychological stress (85.6%), including anxiety (75%), tremors (54%), and sleep disturbances (45%). Organizational barriers, such as adapting practical courses to online formats and increased workloads due to asynchronous learning, were also prominent.
These findings underscore the need for targeted strategies to address the barriers and promote inclusivity and effectiveness in online education. A comprehensive approach integrating institutional, pedagogical, and policy-level interventions is critical for overcoming these challenges.