The Ukrainian research university in light of the East Asian paradigm of global competitiveness in higher education

Abstract

This study explores the rise of the research university in the Ukrainian context, in which academic research has been on the margins of the national R&D funding, and where academics are more accustomed to focusing on survival rather than on scientific productivity. The paper examines current higher education policies at the national level and correlates them with scientific productivity strategies at the level of leading research universities in Kyiv and Lviv. Contradictions at the systemic and institutional levels are examined and discussed. The study argues that the Ukrainian government is experiencing a number of challenges in conceptualizing a university-centered knowledge economy as the driver of the nation's global competitiveness. The challenges are analyzed within the framework of dichotomies between the European interventionist state-model and the East Asian accelerationist state-model in higher education. The study demonstrates that Ukrainian universities become constrained rather than positioned for success in the global competition for symbolic, intellectual and financial resources, while the government prioritizes intervention over acceleration. The study proposes alternative solutions by drawing on the experiences of Chinese societies, Korea and Malaysia.