Abstract:

Bulgarian higher education institutions (HEI) are facing major challenges to provide quality educations that can guarantee fast professional realization. Legislative measures introduced from the government established HEI evaluation methodology, based on rating system, which includes professional realizations as one of major precondition for future HEI’s subsidies. In addition to legislative framework the demographic crisis and declining number of graduating secondary education forces HEI to compete for every graduate. One of the winning strategies for high quality of education leading to proper job placement would be establishment of working win-win cooperation between universities and industry. This partnership should lead to advantages like technology transfer, increase of companies’ competitiveness, provision of professional orientation, practical skills and employability of students and many more. The paper presents a structured model how this process can be implemented in Bulgarian universities including gap analysis in Bulgarian higher education system, developed theoretical cycle for university - industry cooperation management, cycle stages description and practical solutions proposals. The model can be applied in every HEI considering specifics of every institution.

Keywords:

HEIs, Model for university-industry cooperation, theoretical cycle for university-industry cooperation management.