European trends and prospects for financing higher education and science

The article addresses a global trends of financing of the education and science as a branch of the economy. The main purpose of this academic publication is to analyze foreign approaches to reforming higher education and science, the state of financing of education and science, with particular attention to the experience of the Republic of Poland, as well as to identify new principles and prospects for applying modern approaches towards the financing of higher education in Ukraine. The relevance of this study is connected with the fact, that the permanent reform of the Polish higher education system, including regulatory and legal framework, ensures a step-by-step Europeanisation of the Polish higher education system, where the latter becomes a contemporary trend in Ukrainian higher education sector. It is worth to emphasize that the development of qualitative higher education, world-class research to ensure economic security and socio-economic progress of society requires the development elaboration of a strategic approaches as focusing on the creation of backgrounds for investing in education and science and effective economic policy in this area. An analysis of the expenditures in research and development as well in higher education in some countries of Central and Eastern Europe, and of the EU-28 has been conducted showing, that e.g. the financial indicators of the Republic of Poland in 2018 occupy an average position, namely 0.75% are expenditures on higher education from public sources in the structure of GDP (6224,96 million US dollars), and the share of expenditures on research and development research work in GDP has a tendency to increase (in 2007 these expenditures amounted in Poland 0,56% of the GDP, and in 2019 – 1,32% GDP, while in the EU-28 – 1,77% GDP and 2,14%, GDP respectively). Worldwide countries prioritize the development of higher education and science as components of the national economy, as an important factor for their social development and economic progress. Each country forms an own development strategy and differently approaches towards financing the higher education. While researching reform processes and financial indicators of in the R&D area and in higher education system in the Republic of Poland, it can be argued that this is an example of successful transformations in the field of higher education. Thorough legislative changes, integrated information management systems, high-quality and detailed statistical information, positive dynamics of financial indicators are the foreign experiences that the Ukrainian government shall consider in the permanent process of alignment of Ukrainian higher education system to the European integration requirements