ORGANIZATION AND MANAGEMENT OF RESEARCH ACTIVITIES IN MODERN EDUCATIONAL ENVIRONMENT. PROBLEMS AND CHALLENGES

Georgia has been part of the Bologna process since 2005 and ratified the principles pertinent to the European Higher Education Institutions in the organization of its studies. As a forward-looking University Tbilisi State University (TSU) realizes that it faces new demands and strives to meet the challenges of the century in order to prepare its students for their professional careers. By making the University more demand-driven for both the domestic and international markets and better understanding how intellectual property can be utilized as an income source the university creates new products and services that will contribute to its sustainability and independence.
We begin our paper by describing the institutional context that we have been working within.
Over the last several years in TSU has been made significant changes: on basis of twenty two faculties were created butt-joint six, were established the third stage of academic education – structural Doctorate. Recently TSU merged 16 research institutions that were independent institutions under the Georgian Academy of Science supervision. The main source of financing of research is external grants, mostly acquired from Government, Ministry of Science and Education, National and from some International Foundations (USA and EU support money), with 8-12% indirect costs. Unfortunately, in Georgia there are very few examples of Business Enterprises investments to science. University highly depends on the conducted Research Management.
Currently duties of TSU Department of Scientific Research and Development(TSU R&D)connected with research supportive possibilities: elaboration of scientific research priorities; fundraising; consultations on various grant related topics; identifies external funding opportunities and facilitates interdisciplinary collaborations.
In this paper we present ways of assistance proposed by TSU R&D:
Support improvement -
•Successful Government/International Grants for research and infrastructure
•Increasing of internal financial and material-technical support for applied research projects
Integration of international relations -
•Invitation of well-known scientists (Foreigners/Georgians working abroad) for lecture delivery, scientific consultations and collaboration; Holding international workshops and share experiences with foreign colleagues
•Support implementation of joint research projects in collaboration with the World-Leading Universities and Scientific Centers
Visibility of TSU research and the accessibility of software -
•Creation of TSU Research Portal http://rp.tsu.ge
In addition to main competences TSU R&D introduced:
Studying curse -
• “Science Management” was prepared for PhD students from different faculties
Widely popularize Science -
•TSU junior University within TSU
•Deliver lectures for secondary schools
Internationalize scientific publications -
•Anonymous external/international expertise (peer-review) of the articles of those PhD students, who have already accomplished doctoral research
•Establish peer-reviewed on-line and printed international journals

Observing findings of assistance of TSU R&D we state that it is necessary: to arise self-motivation of academic personal; delivering scientific achievements and innovations to the business environment. As a conclusion of report we present that our approach has been effective at supporting University Community and for fundraising that is shown in numbers.