Financing of Infrastructure in Education: International Experience of Attracting Private Investments and Opportunities for Russia to Form a Knowledge-Driven Economy

The article substantiates the role of education, proposes and confirms the hypothesis about the importance and necessity of social partnerships for financing and development of education in knowledge- driven economy. To confirm the advanced hypotheses we studied the evolution of concepts of social interaction and social responsibility to justify patterns of social partnerships in the knowledge-driven economy that allowed us, using the model of "triple helix", to show the necessity of the collaboration of government, universities and corporations to advance on the path of innovative development. We considered the industrial districts as territories, which act as a space of coordination of actors, to whom the solution of new production problems is impossible without direct interaction with universities. The lack of budget funds for the development of education requires a search for other sources of funding for infrastructure facilities in education. We revealed the mechanisms of attraction of private funding of educational institutions in Russia, arising challenges, and possible solutions. The article considers the application of concession as a form of public – private partnerships in preschool education, which recently has found application in Russia. Based on studying world best practices, the authors propose to use the investment funds, in particular, the mechanism of impact investment in education as a promising technology. Improvement of Russian legislation concerning investment funds will create the foundation for wide application of exchange-traded mutual funds for collective investments in social infrastructure. Formation of trust funds and grants to finance education becomes widespread in Russia.