Abstract:

The current level of the world’s development has been getting more and more dependent on human creativity and inventiveness resulting in innovations. Actually, innovations are generated by scientific and technological creativity, industrial applicability and commercial feasibility. However, not a less important role is played by the personnel and environment. A continuous innovation process can only be forced by ‘innovative people’ and the ‘innovation environment’. The concept of ‘innovative people’ does not only include innovators, but other members of the society as well – teachers forming human resources; officials determining the ‘rules of the game’ and the institutional environment, consumers forming demand, etc.
The overwhelming strive for innovations and their capability of boosting economies both nationally and globally have created an innovative paradigm shaping every industry and every field of human activity.

Innovative economies have developed their own requirements for every intertwining sphere, with the sphere of education in the first place as education and economy are inseparable in their mutual interdependence. The new requirements facing national and supranational education systems cover all levels of education as higher education cannot ‘fly in the sky’ not being deeply rooted in the high, secondary and even primary school because for everlasting development of innovative economies, everyone’s innovative potential is to be developed straight after birth instead of dressing everyone in rigid ‘strait-jackets’ of limits and stereotypical conventions.

And this process is binary – it is a person’s identity, as well as his/her ability and willingness to create and innovate shape the education systems in many ways. However, the education system, as part of the higher order system depends on the organization of society as a whole. The existing practice of the society and educational institutions associated with many problems, strengthens the negative trends, generates the phenomenon of “displacement of the purposes and functions” and, in general, deteriorates the quality of life for the major part of the population. The problems are generated by mental models and lie deeply in the structure of the systems.

So, to ensure the innovative development of a national economy, it is necessary to make changes in two aspects. On the one hand, it is important to change the institutional environment in order to create an environment in which each person’s knowledge and creativity will be in demand and at the service of the overall social and personal development. On the other hand, it is time to rethink and adjust the mental models that drive the behaviour of people and organizations. Otherwise, all reforms will only worsen the situation, despite all good intentions.
A systemic paradigm can and should become a guiding thread of evolutionary transformation, which development should be started at preschool age with the use of gaming case studies (including children’s problems and children’s world view), and be sure to consistently continue the formation of the respective competences at undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate levels, successively forming inter-disciplinary understanding appropriate to each level of education.

The paper considers the role of Universities as ‘icebreakers’ in the reformation of education systems referring to positive and negative experience of leading European and Russian Universities and justifies the authors’ idea that Universities are the most appropriate institutions for innovative processes as they possess both innovative environments and innovative people. And systemic approach is the one able to create innovative networks developing and disseminating leading Universities’ successful experience.

Keywords:

innovative environment, innovative people, innovative networks, Universities’ leading role as boosters of innovative economies.