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11ECONOMIC SCIENCES
ECONOMIC KNOWLEDGE FUNCTIONING AT THE UKRAINIAN TECHNICAL UNIVERSITIES
Chornyi O.
Vinnytsia Finance and Economics University, PhD Associate professor of the Management and Administration Department
Abstract
Contemporary interdisciplinary integration between technical and economic disciplines is important for the growth and prosperity of the most countries on our planet. This interdisciplinary trend, which has established itself during the 20th century, has affected the growth of the common good, the globalization and the establishment of a fair goods distribution. Modern topics such as innovations, startups and digital economy have further exacerbated this issue and made it super-relevant. Our paper concerns the study of economic issues and its features within the Ukrainian technical universities. This general analysis is one of the basic elements related to the Ukrainian tradition of interdisciplinary integration between economic and technical disciplines.
Keywords: economic department, economics, interdisciplinarity, technical university, Ukraine.
Introduction. The creation of technical universities in Ukraine took place during the 19th and 20th centuries, which was a natural process, as the needs of the national economy required both technical scientists and specialists who could work with complex technologies. Kyiv Polytechnic Institute was founded in 1896; Lviv Polytechnic National University has its origins in 1816; the decision to establish the Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute was made in 1870; Dnieper Polytechnic was founded in 1899; Odessa National Polytechnic University was founded in 1918; Vinnytsia National Technical University was founded in1956. It is obvious that technical sciences on the territory of contemporary Ukraine began to develop strongly in the second half of the 19th century, but technical sciences and technical education received a mass character in the 20th century, during the Soviet period of Ukrainian history.
Literature review. The contemporary scientific picture of the world is characterized by a wide interdis-ciplinarity, and therefore one can always find information that is situated at the intersection of economics and engineering: economics of technology [1] or economic analysis of technology [5]. Such interdisciplinary discourse is an important for the following reasons: technology affects economic growth [2] and regional development [6], which is relevant for practical policy. In addition, such new phenomena as the digital economy [7], startups and innovations [9] have brought many benefits to modern global society. Accordingly, our study concerns the part of techno-economic interdisciplinary discourse that is related to the activities of economic departments within technical universities.
Results. In the USSR, polytechnic universities, like other industry-specific universities, operated exclusively by state order. Since the private sector in the economy of the USSR was practically absent, the graduates were trained to work in state-owned enterprises in various industries, such as mining, chemical, metallurgical, oil, engineering, ets. Direct correlations have been established between the work of state-owned enterprises and the volume of government procurement. Funding for the education of future specialists was provided by public funds. The development of technical institutes, not least, depended on the development of
military equipment and the space industry, which for several decades has become a cliché. Thus, in the 90s of the 20th century (in comparison with the establishment of the first technical universities and their mass orientation in the Soviet times) there was another period of technical universities development.
The collapse of the USSR, the change of ideology in the Post-Soviet countries, the development of national institutions and, moreover, the reorientation of the Ukraine's economic system development direction, made significant adjustments in the functioning of technical universities. Numerous technical institutes have become known as universities, they have gained some degree of autonomy, as they have begun to train specialists not only for the state needs. The financing methods related to universities' activities have also partially changed. The most importantly, the relations between the technical sciences and law, politics, management, finance, ethics, international relations, sociology and other sciences have changed.
Since gaining independence in Ukraine, most state-owned enterprises have been privatized, the private enterprise sector has begun to grow rapidly, and tens of thousands of small enterprises have been established. The development of ICT has accelerated and diversified the development of technical sciences. Scientists and teachers of Ukrainian technical universities had to join the world discourses concerning technical sciences very quickly. Integration into the global scientific environment is positive now, as domestic schools of physicists, chemists and designers are considered competent and competitive.
The current stage of technical universities development in Ukraine is marked by certain trends, such as strengthening integration into the global scientific space, increasing competitiveness, strengthening ties with local stakeholders and state bodies. On the other hand, the number of high-tech enterprises in the Ukrainian market is increasing (mainly in the field of IT and software development). Same, the role of startups and innovative forms of production are growing. The amount of foreign investment in the Ukrainian industries is increasing. What is described in the last
paragraph is directly related to the development of economics and its connection with technical sciences. Let's take a closer look at the analysis of the economics' role in technical universities and the interdisciplinary problems associated with it.
We singled out 21 Ukrainian universities of technical orientation from the modern Ukrainian ranking "Osvita.ua" [4]. The vast majority of the universities
studied have a faculty of economics (Table 1). 6 universities have more than 2 economics macrodepart-ments (these can also be management faculties). Two other universities did not have information on a university structure on their official websites. All, without exception, economic faculties (macrodepartments) of technical universities, concern the development of a market economy (the transition from socialist to capitalist economic theory took place during the 1990s).
Table 1.
Structure of the Ukrainian Technical Universities
№ Higher Education Institution Place in the Ranking Number of Faculties Economic Faculty Number of Economic Departments
1 Kyiv Polytechnic Institute named after Igor Sikorsky 2 26 1 6
2 National University "Lviv Polytechnic" 7 17 1 6
3 National Technical University "Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute" 12 11 1 8
4 National Technical University "Dnipro Polytechnic" 33 10 2 5
5 Odesa National Polytechnic University 35 14 1 -
6 Vinnytsia National Technical University 36 8 1 5
7 Poltava National Technical University named after Yuri Kondratyuk 50 5 1 7
8 Chernihiv National Technological University 51-52 9 4 10
9 Ivano-Frankivsk National Technical University of Oil and Gas 51-52 8 1 6
10 Ternopil National Technical University named after Ivan Pulyuy 53 4 1 6
11 Zhytomyr State Technological University 58-59 6 2 3
12 Lutsk National Technical University 69-70 7 2 6
13 Donetsk National Technical University 83 5 1 3
14 Kherson National Technical University 92-93 5 2 5
15 Priazovsky State Technical University 104 8 1 6
16 Cherkasy State Technological University 120121 8 1 6
17 Central Ukrainian National Technical University 129130 6 2 8
18 Zaporizhia National Technical University 142 13 1 5
20 Dnipro State Technical University 176 5 1 3
21 International University of Science and Technology named after Academician Yuri Bugay 224225 - - -
22 Kharkiv Technological University "STEP" 240 - - -
Source: created on the basis of «2019 Consolidated Ranking of Ukrainian HEI» [4].
The most of technical universities are competitive in the Ukrainian higher education market. 14 out of 21 universities are in the top 100. For comparison, none of the agricultural universities is in the top 100. Technical universities situated almost in every big regional city, which is a positive factor, as the availability of profes-
sional scientists can accelerate the economic development of the regions in which the universities are located.
In the largest cities of Ukraine (Kyiv, Kharkiv, Lviv, Dnipro and Odesa) the structures of technical universities are more branched, which indicates a greater specialization of a university staff. 2 universities are in
the top ten universities, 7 technical universities are included in the list of 50 most competitive universities in Ukraine.
The number of faculties at the Ukrainian technical universities varies from 4 to 26. The largest number of "economic" faculties is located at Chernihiv National University of Technology. This is partly due to the fact that all economic knowledge is divided into specific economic knowledge within individual faculties. In contrast, the vast majority of technical universities (13 out of 21) have only one faculty of economics, which is sufficient for the interdisciplinary integration with specialized technical knowledge.
The number of economic departments at the economic faculties of Ukrainian technical universities varies from 3 to 10. The specialization of the departments is quite standard and concerns such economic issues as accounting, taxation, entrepreneurship, economic cybernetics, marketing, management, business administration, international economics, finance, etc. Our further statistical analysis of the subjects taught at an economic departments of a technical faculty proves that an
important place in the activities of economic departments occupies not only economic but also interdisciplinary knowledge.
Same as in the Ukrainian agricultural universities, economics is one of the scientific fields with which the technical sciences have strong interdisciplinary links. If technical universities are compared with medical or pedagogical ones, the latter retain a certain level of tradition and focus on the public sector of the economy. For now we will focus on some features of the economic knowledge functioning in a Ukrainian technical university.
For the statistical analysis of the subjects (educational disciplines) taught at a faculty of economics we chose Cherkasy State Technological University [3]. More than 230 subjects are taught at the 6 departments of the Faculty of Economics (Table 2). We divided them into those that have mainly economic orientation, interdisciplinary character or a clear industry-specific (non-economic) orientation. The departments teach from 28 to 56 subjects, most of which are purely economic or interdisciplinary (partly related to economics).
e s ■ "53 s rs ar 1 is S - ci s rs ar i-economic Disciplines, %
№ Department Name 'S3 S al t :onomic Di plines nli o &U "O u di ro en t i-economic ciplines onomic Di plines, % li o a u 'g .a s •■S s Ö g t to
o T W nt oc HH w o Z W w o Z
1 Department of Accounting, Analysis and Taxation 34 15 17 2 44,1 50,0 5,9
2 Department of Economics and Entre-preneurship 28 19 9 0 67,9 32,1 0,0
3 Department of Economic Cybernetics and Marketing 38 3 26 9 7,9 68,4 23,7
4 Department of Management and Business Administration 46 23 23 0 50,0 50,0 0,0
5 Department of International Economics and Business 31 1 25 5 3,2 80,6 16,1
6 Department of Finance 56 40 15 1 71,4 26,8 1,8
Total 233 101 115 17 43,3 49,4 7,3
Table 2.
The Educational Disciplines that are Taught at Cherkasy State Technological University (Faculty of Economics
and Management)
Source: created on the basis of «CSTU: Faculty of Economics and Management» [3].
The number of subjects that are mainly economic occupies a significant place in the departments of the Faculty of Economics. For example, at the Department of Finance, economic subjects exceed 71%, and at the Department of Economics and Entrepreneurship exceed 67%. Within these two departments that economic knowledge prevails over interdisciplinary, although within other departments interdisciplinary knowledge prevails.
The interdisciplinarity at each of the 6 departments has its own specifics and focus. The lowest percentage of interdisciplinarity is observed in departments that have an obvious economic orientation. The largest percentage of subjects that have an interdisciplinary nature
is observed at the Department of Economic Cybernetics and Marketing (68.4%) and at the Department of International Economics and Business (80.6%). These departments have an interdisciplinary synthesis with computer science and international relations, respectively. Other departments have interdisciplinary links between economics and public administration, governance, law, systems theory, sociology, transportation, innovation, agriculture, etc.
Industry-specific knowledge that is non-economic in nature does not occur within all departments. In the total number of subjects, such knowledge has a relatively small percentage (maximum 23.7%). This situation is explained by the fact that most non-economic
knowledge is contained in other faculties of technical universities, where it significantly exceeds economic knowledge. The number of industry-specific subjects varies from 1 to 9 units.
If we pay attention to the total percentage of subjects that have an interdisciplinary nature, we can see that it is slightly higher than economic, 49.4% and 43.3%, respectively. This suggests that economic knowledge is quite well integrated into the knowledge system of the technical university, mainly in the form of innovations, startups and ICT. Now, we turn our attention to the possibilities of the integration strengthening related to the economic knowledge functioning within the knowledge system of technical universities.
Discussion of the results. The presence of a faculty of economics in all the observed technical universities, as well as the high amount of interdisciplinary subjects, indicate that the role of economic knowledge in Ukrainian technical universities will only increase. Within this paper, we would like to focus on the connection of technical universities with a regional industry and other regional stakeholders. In addition, other important elements may include the global standardization of knowledge, the modernization of the Ukrainian technical universities' scientific component and the commercialization of technical knowledge.
Today, the most important issue for Ukrainian technical universities is the problem of interaction with industry in regions where the universities are located. Large industrial facilities created during the Soviet era demand the attention of scientists, as well as medium and small enterprises, where the work with technical devices of varying complexity is widely spreaded. Thus, the development of Ukrainian industry will take place in parallel with the development of science in the universities. Similarly, the correlation between the technical level of enterprises, as well as the competitiveness of knowledge and research programs in the universities will be important.
Strengthening the interaction between technical universities and regional industry is just one side of the interaction activation between universities and stakeholders. The key stakeholders who have an impact on increasing the competitiveness of knowledge in Ukrainian technical universities include the state bodies, business representatives, civil society and foreign partners. Strengthening of the interaction with stakeholders will have a strong impact on the increase related to knowledge competitiveness, as the stakeholders' knowledge is related to different practical aspects of science. Thus, theoretical knowledge of a university can be supplemented by knowledge of the stakeholders' daily practice.
Increasing the competitiveness of technical knowledge produced in Ukrainian technical universities raises the question of the Ukrainian system of technical universities formation in the form of an integrated entity. Strengthening ties between Ukrainian technical universities is about increasing the competitiveness of Ukrainian technical education and science at the global level.
The stated above is related to the modernization of science and education in Ukrainian technical universities. The integration of Ukrainian higher education into global academic networks requires the development and acquisition of a large amount of knowledge related to the activities of foreign universities in various parts of the globe. The development of global scientific and educational discourses, including the field of technical sciences, is associated with increasing the level of competence and competitiveness of Ukrainian scientists and educators.
The conducted analysis of the interdisciplinary aspects related to economic knowledge functioning in technical universities is fragmentary. The limitations of this analysis are obvious. However, it is important to understand the major interdisciplinary issues of paramount importance. Those constitute a part of the university activity that can be effectively analyzed using the conceptual apparatus of the contemporary theory of interdisciplinarity.
So to speak, avoiding such an analysis is a classic trivial error: the subject of analysis is presented everywhere, but not yet properly conceptualized. Everyone within the academic community is well aware of the intersection between economics and technology. Moreover, scientists and teachers deal with it every day and use existing interdisciplinary links quite effectively. As we have analyzed, there are more than 100 educational disciplines in the average Ukrainian university, which is a formalization of integration between economic and technical discourses. However, is it possible to improve the quality of such disciplines at both educational and scientific levels? Or is it possible to significantly increase the economic efficiency of technical phenomena and processes? Simply speaking, the theory of interdis-ciplinarity provides numerous benefits for the increase in productivity of the integration between different academic disciplines. However, if the national scientific community is slightly familiar with the contemporary theory of interdisciplinarity (as it developed in North America and Western Europe), many opportunities may be lost. Accordingly, the economic effect of the professionals' activities in the technical field may be lower.
The analysis of interdisciplinary interaction between economics and technical sciences can be conducted at different levels: secondary education, university education, scientific education, scientific research, interprofessional interaction, activities of enterprises or government and everyday life. For example, if a scientist does not know the terminology related to the theory of interdisciplinarity, it is similar to the way other areas of scientific knowledge (except specialization) are ignored. Accordingly, if a scientist specializes in materials science and does not understand economics, the effective commercialization of the inventions may not be successful. However, if a scientist does not understand the theory of interdisciplinarity, even the comprehension of both areas can cause serious difficulties for productive integration. Consequently, the economic effect of inventions commercialization will be significantly lower.
The contemporary science system can be classified as a highly complex system. In the modern world there are tens of thousands of scientific discourses that have disciplinary or interdisciplinary nature. That is why a thorough scientific specialization is not the only key to the success in science. The scientist constantly encounters new terms, concepts or methods, which often belong to different academic disciplines both in personal research and within general academia. The ability to navigate in such diverse streams of scientific knowledge can be the key to success. In academia, orientation in the science system is required as if "by default". This is often not mentioned, but it is implied that the scientist must understand it and the place of a personal research activity within it. In practice, it often turns out that the proper understanding of interdisciplinary scientific problems is avoided. As a result, inexperienced scientists often see the contemporary science system not as an integrated wholeness, but as a set of separate disciplines, the relationship between which is quite difficult to percieve.
The need for modern interdisciplinary tools has been felt in the Ukrainian academic community for a long time. Same as three decades ago, today some problems of Ukrainian science are silenced, due to the lack of competence or the existence of authoritarian bureaucratic obstacles. This state of affairs during the Soviet period of Ukrainian history was considered natural and invariant. Fortunately, democratic processes in contemporary Ukraine make the society more open, pluralistic and tolerant. Accordingly, social relations also changed the academic world. There is another paradox related to this: the academic community would have to change and adapt faster than society as a whole (due to the availability of information and practices). Instead, the Ukrainian scientific community has proved to be less mobile than society as a whole, indicating that it has numerous rigid elements that resist the changes.
Within Ukrainian academia, the situation with the theory of interdisciplinarity is quite complicated. In the almost complete absence of Ukrainian literature related to this theory, feigned competence and deep understanding are widely practiced. In fact, such a "deep understanding" of the theory of interdisciplinarity is replaced by an intuitive perception of the word "interdisciplinarity", not even as a concept, but rather simply as a general scientific term. Although textbooks sometimes contain a few-page article on the use of interdis-ciplinarity within a particular academic discipline, such texts are mostly discursive and descriptive rather than written with the use of "interdisciplinary tools" in a form of the real complexity coverage.
What we have mentioned in various other articles: the theory of interdisciplinarity can bring numerous benefits to the Ukrainian academic community. The development of the Ukrainian tradition of interdisciplinary research and its use in education are necessary in the contemporary world, which is characterized by increased complexity.
In the field of technical sciences, the advantages of the theory of interdisciplinarity are self-evident. Instead of vague attempts to describe interdisciplinary integration with other areas of scientific knowledge through intuitive discourses, scientists can make high use of the interdisciplinary practices of scientists from
the developed countries. Mentioned practices have reached such a high level that their conceptualization has turned the possibilities of integration into "interdisciplinary tools", which at times increase the efficiency of work with scientific phenomena related to various academic disciplines. So, if we negotiate about the Ukrainian scientific community, the improvements are related to the study of the works of foreign scientists, their translation and the Ukrainian tradition of interdisciplinary research improvement. Ultimately, if the work on mastering the global discourse of interdiscipli-narity is successful, it will provide numerous benefits to students of Ukrainian universities. The latter may significantly increase the efficiency of the whole Ukrainian education system. In fact, a technical student who understands the interdisciplinary problems of education and science will increase the innovative potential and make a contribution to the national economy.
Conclusions. Within Ukrainian technical universities, much of the scientific and educational activities are related to economics. Interdisciplinary integration between economics and technical sciences (engineering) involves the teaching of dozens of interdisciplinary educational courses. However, the theory of interdisci-plinarity is underdeveloped in Ukraine. Often a deep analytical understanding of this theory and its possibilities is replaced by an intuitive perception of the concept itself. The main conclusion of this work lies in the following: the effectiveness of scientific and educational activities in Ukrainian universities can be significantly increased by studying, mastering and disseminating the global discourse of interdisciplinarity in the Ukrainian language.
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