Relevance and importance of entrepreneurial activity of higher education organizations

INTRODUCTION

The reforms implemented in the Republic of Uzbekistan in recent years have had a positive impact on the education sector, as well as on all other sectors. The essence of reforms in the field of higher education is to increase the creative abilities and potential of the youth of Uzbekistan, expand their opportunities for success in their future life activities, and further strengthen the integration of science, education, and production. The main condition for achieving these goals is to raise the process of training highly qualified personnel with high spiritual and moral qualities, independent thinking, to a qualitatively new level, to the modernization of higher education, and to the development of social and economic sectors based on advanced educational technologies [4].

At the same time, legal foundations have been created for higher education institutions (hereinafter referred to as OHEs) to abandon the old way of working, demonstrate their potential, and systematically organize work on creating innovations, integrating science into practice, and commercializing research results, using not only the quality of the enterprise that supplies personnel for the needs of the state and society, but also their high intellectual potential (this includes professors, teachers, students, and employees). Because the main condition for the success and competitiveness of the world's best foreign universities is their functioning as entrepreneurial universities.

On the other hand, the number of higher education institutions in our country has now exceeded 219 [3]. This leads to the formation of an internal environment of healthy competition between higher education institutions. This competition necessarily indicates the need to train specialists for the needs of society in a new innovative way, to identify the needs of the individual, society and the state, and on this basis to create new technologies or products on a scientifically sound basis.

In addition, the need for effective functioning of OHEs in a market economy, as well as the strengthening of cooperation between higher education institutions in our country and higher education institutions around the world, is increasing day by day. It is precisely these processes that further increase the need for OHEs to engage in entrepreneurial activities.

Also, each higher education institution should contribute to the well-being of people, the development of society and the state by commercializing and applying new scientific and creative developments and technologies created in it. This will bring new innovations into our practical lives.

Another positive aspect of entrepreneurial activities of higher education institutions is that it paves the way for the formation of sources of financing for institutions from various sources.

In this regard, the 2019 Resolution of the Cabinet of Ministers of the Republic of Uzbekistan “On the phased transition of higher education institutions to a self-financing system” was one of the important steps for the entrepreneurial activity of higher education institutions. In accordance with the Resolution, additional tasks were assigned to OHEs transitioning to a self-financing system, including the provision of additional educational services, the introduction of advanced training for specialists in economic sectors and other paid educational services, and the commercialization of the results of education, science, innovation, and scientific research in higher education institutions [12].

Most importantly, by 2020, parts 3 and 4 of Article 62 of the Law of the Republic of Uzbekistan "On Education" stipulate that state educational institutions shall provide paid educational services and other services in accordance with the tasks established by their charter, as well as have the right to engage in entrepreneurial activities, and that the provision of paid educational services shall not impede the main activities of state educational institutions [7].

As a result of the above legislation, the Tashkent Institute of Irrigation and Agricultural Mechanization Engineers alone operates on the basis of scientific research and experimental design and economic contracts concluded with more than 19 industry organizations. The volume of the above work is the responsibility of the university's professors and teaching staff, who have 58.4% of the scientific potential. In 2021, the institute attracted extra-budgetary funds of 4 billion 79.921 million sum as a result of the commercialization of scientific research [6].

The important aspect of these legislative norms is that higher education institutions are required to regularly search for sources of income, find consumers of scientific research results in domestic and foreign markets, and conduct innovative research on a custom basis based on consumer needs.

MAIN PART

The transfer of knowledge from universities to the private sector is considered one of the most important sources for creating innovation and economic growth. Accordingly, governments around the world have been encouraged to be more active in transferring intellectual knowledge from higher education institutions to private production and industry. Of course, starting a new business is considered one of the most promising ways to direct knowledge to the market and, as a result, develop technologies at the macro level. Thus, recent changes in university and government policies are aimed at establishing a strong entrepreneurial spirit among university academics [8].

It is known that an increase in the volume of scientific developments and research in higher education institutions is an impetus for the development of their entrepreneurial activity (here we are talking about the commercialization of scientific research). In turn, the development of entrepreneurial activity in higher education institutions leads to an increase in the share of research in the country's GDP, which in turn leads to an increase in the innovation capacity indicator of GDP.

The most important tool for studying such causal relationships is correlation-regression analysis. When studying causal relationships, the density of connections between factors is first determined. When determining the density of connections, it is appropriate to use the following pairwise correlation coefficient:

According to the dynamics of the main indicators of the development of scientific potential in the Republic of Uzbekistan, the number of organizations that have carried out scientific research has shown varying trends in recent years (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Number of organizations that have carried out scientific research [13]

According to the analysis, the number of organizations that carried out scientific research in the republic in 2020 and 2021 was 83.6% compared to 2019, and by 2022 this figure had decreased by 2.6%. However, the number of employees engaged in scientific research and development has increased significantly in recent times. In particular, in 2022 this figure increased by 1.18 times compared to 2019 (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Dynamics of the number of employees engaged in scientific research and development [14] (persons)

Our empirical analysis based on equation (1) presented in the study confirms that there is a high degree of correlation between the number of employees engaged in scientific research and development and the share of high-tech and knowledge-intensive sectors of the economy in GDP (Table 1).

Table 1

Correlation between the number of employees engaged in scientific research and development and the share of high-tech and knowledge-intensive sectors of the economy in GDP [5]

The results of the analysis show that the value of the pairwise correlation coefficient between the number of employees engaged in scientific research and development and the share of high-tech and knowledge-intensive sectors of the economy in GDP is 0.83 percent. This indicator confirms the high level of correlation between the factors according to the Chaddock scale (Table 2).

Table 2

Chaddock scale for describing addiction [1]

However, since the correlation coefficient only measures the degree of association between the indicators under study, it cannot explain the cause of the relationship under consideration, and therefore a method called regression analysis serves this purpose and makes it possible to assess the effectiveness of factors affecting the resulting indicator.

According to the results of the regression analysis, an increase in the number of employees engaged in scientific research and development by 1,000 people leads to an increase in the share of high-tech and knowledge-intensive sectors of the economy in GDP by 0.36 percentage points (Table 3).

Table 3

Regression analysis results [15]

In 2019-2022, 176.8% of the research work carried out corresponded to scientific and technical developments, 142% to the results of applied research, and 81.2% to fundamental research. We can also see that the number of employees performing scientific research and experimental design work has increased from 13,288 people in 2019 to 17,123 people in 2022 [2]. This, in turn, indicates that the number of employees with scientific degrees and scientific titles has also increased between these years. Most of these employees are professors and teachers of state higher educational institutions in our Republic. In this case, we can see that the increase in the number of extra-budgetary incomes by higher educational institutions is directly related to the scientific potential of their professors and teachers.

This leads to creative thinking of professors, teachers and students in OHEs, and the formation of new ideas.

As can be seen from the above analysis, the state's primary role in implementing reforms and creating a legal framework for OHEs will lead to the growth of entrepreneurial activities in them.

CONCLUSION

The failure of institutions that incorporate professors and teachers with high scientific potential to provide ideas that technologically and innovatively develop society and the state, but do not engage in entrepreneurial activities, is considered indifference to the development of the state and society.

The need for entrepreneurial activity of universities in our country is also due to the fact that it helps to avoid economic crises, develop the public and private sectors, reduce poverty, provide employment to the growing population, and find scientifically based solutions to environmental problems. Therefore, universities are considered the driving force behind the country's economy and its development.

If we consider that the main activity of universities is focused on education, and its main task is to provide competitive personnel, then the development of our country in all areas will lag behind other developed countries. Therefore, universities must also create a flexible environment, fight for the personnel they train to have stable jobs in the labor market, monitor their activities, and constantly update the mechanisms for commercializing scientific developments. For this, it is necessary to develop a rating of the effectiveness of universities in Uzbekistan and introduce assessment indicators with the above issues.

In addition, it is necessary to harmonize the provisions of Article 76 of the Civil Code of the Republic of Uzbekistan [9], Article 62 of the Law on Education [10], and Article 31 of the Law on Non-Governmental Non-Profit Organizations [11] in their part related to the entrepreneurial activities of institutions. Since these articles recognize educational organizations as non-profit organizations and grant them the right to engage in entrepreneurial activities, it is not considered appropriate to impose the same conditions as those for entities registered with the state as real business entities. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the norms related to the implementation of entrepreneurial activities by these institutions based on their limited legal capacity.