1. MECHANISMS FOR ENHANCING THE FINANCIAL AUTONOMY OF UNIVERSITIES: THE DIGITAL DIMENSION.
- Author
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Bazeliuk, Oleksandr, Vitrenko, Yurii, Zhylyaev, Igor, Vorona, Viktoria, and Bazeliuk, Vasil
- Subjects
TECHNOLOGICAL innovations ,DIGITAL technology ,COMPUTER literacy ,STUDENT exchange programs ,INSTITUTIONAL autonomy ,ELECTRONIC paper ,EDUCATIONAL finance ,CAPITALISM - Abstract
The problems of digitalization in the higher education system are considered in the paper; modern digital tools as the mechanisms for enhancing the financial autonomy of universities in Ukraine are revealed. The authors assume that the main direction of digitalization and development of digital technologies is the creation of digital infrastructures (e-infrastructures), which provide primary processing, storage and data exchange, distributed computing, and automated analytics of a higher education institution activity. However, it is noticed that in the digital world data maturity – the compliance of data with the requirements of the mentioned digital infrastructures – is essential. Digital tools for the financial sector of the economy are commonly called FinTech. This term is used to describe the technological innovations in financial services, which can lead to the emergence of new business models, applications, processes, and products; they also may have a corresponding material impact on financial markets, institutions, and ways of providing financial services. The authors are based on the main provisions of institutionalism and neo-institutionalism, financial capitalism as the theoretical foundations of modern economic relations of universities. The author's definition of the institutional autonomy of a university as an institutional unit of the modern economy, as well as the main mechanisms and instruments for regulating the limits of their institutional autonomy, are proposed. In this context, the authors describe the main FinTech technologies, which have significant prospects as components of the mechanisms of Ukrainian universities' financial autonomy, i.e.: cloud technologies, artificial intelligence technologies, the internet of things, peer-to-peer transaction technologies, digital banking, and blockchain. Analyzing the features of digital financial technologies, much attention is paid to the blockchain, in particular, smart contracts as the most accessible for Ukrainian universities in the near future. The perspective directions of introducing blockchain technology in the digital systems of Ukrainian universities are outlined. It is noted that digitalization in the university sphere stipulates establishing mandatory rules (standards), the creation and functioning of digital technologies, which act as institutional constraints to almost all the proposed mechanisms and instruments of university institutional autonomy, including the university funding mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2023
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