Towards Creativity and Innovation in Universities: Study on Central and Eastern Europe

Abstract

AbstractUniversities have a pivotal role to play in the challenging restructuring process that economies are undergoing due to higher education’s critical role in the information age. Universities can contribute to this process of change by creating new knowledge as well as by shaping new skills, which are necessary for exploiting modern technologies and understanding how technology interacts with society. The aim of this paper is to compare universities from Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in terms of creativity related to research and educational activity. The knowledge triangle concept is employed to compare involvement of universities in education, research, and innovation. The divisive hierarchical clustering was used to group countries by knowledge triangle performance. Five clusters have been identified regarding research-education-innovation interactions. The study contributes by shedding light on education as the missing link between research and innovation in the CEE countries and extends knowledge about heterogeneity of this region in terms of creativity. It also contributes to the discourse how innovation policies can support universities’ structural transformations towards integration of their education, research, and innovation activities that will enable to confront an array of societal challenges.