Higher education and economic innovation, a comparison of European countries

Cecile Hoareau,Gabriele Marconi,Jo Ritzen

doi:10.1186/2193-9012-2-24

Abstract

This paper compares higher education policies across thirty two European countries, using the contribution to economic innovation as a benchmark for the comparison. We suggest that an increase in university autonomy and public funding, that we qualify as ‘empowerment’, positively affects the research and education performance of universities, and more importantly the innovation potential of countries. We subsequently formulate policy related recommendations for Europe.

Highlights

56 Euros of GDP was generated per hour worked in Norway in 2010 but only 14 Euros per hour in Bulgaria according to the statistics of the European Commission (2011a, b)
We proxy in this paper “innovation” by on the one hand “productivity per hour worked” as an outcome and on the other employment in knowledge intensive activities as an input
We concentrate on labor productivity, given that labor productivity is more likely to be influenced by education than capital productivity

Summary

Introduction

56 Euros of GDP was generated per hour worked in Norway in 2010 but only 14 Euros per hour in Bulgaria according to the statistics of the European Commission (2011a, b). Literature review The accumulation of knowledge through education can increase labor productivity, innovation and growth This occurs through the change in the quality of new vintages of human capital (Kim 1998; Van Zon and Antonietti 2004; Hanushek and Woessman 2012), leading to “labor saving” of low skilled workers, as a result of the automation of routine jobs. Aghion et al (2009a, b), along the pathways of Volkwein (1986) and Volkwein and Malik (1997), investigated the impact of other public policies, like the governance mechanisms of universities on research output using the number of patents and the position of the university in international research rankings as university performance indicators They found that university autonomy and competition were positively correlated with university outputs across the US and Europe. They indicators do not capture differences that may exist in levels of autonomy across degree courses, for example in the selectivity of undergraduate versus postgraduate degrees

● Funding

Funding allocation

Conclusions