HIGHER EDUCATION AS A PILLAR IN INCREASING INNOVATION CAPACITIES

Abstract

The article tries to accent that one of the fundamental challenges and tasks of the contemporary national economies in an effort to create and maintain innovation based competitiveness is to develop and upgrade the human capital through a qualitative higher educational system. Using the data from the Global Innovation Index (GII) the paper analyses the interdependence between the quality of the educational system and the level of innovativeness of nations. The paper is focused on the South East European (SEE) countries and the quality of their educational system as one of the reasons of their innovativeness lag. Through the correlation index and regression analyses the paper confirms the differences in relationship and influence of higher education on innovativeness between SEE and the Central European Economies (CEE) todays’ EU members.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.em.19.3.8125