Partnership of the university and business: regional aspect

The rapid transformation of the economic system stimulated an imbalance in the development of the regions of the Russian Federation, which is expressed in differences in demographic, production, financial and social indicators. This dynamics determines the process of regional divergence that is characteristic of the country. One of the powerful levers for overcoming the socio-economic “gap” of territories is the optimization of partnerships between entrepreneurs who need highly qualified personnel and innovative technologies, and regional universities that need to attract additional financial resources for stable and high-quality functioning. The main purpose of this work is to identify the main effects of the development of partnerships between the university and business that affect the regional community. For a comprehensive consideration of the analyzed problem, the authors applied a stakeholder approach to the study of cooperation between universities and the business community. Within the framework of the study, the authors consider the main factors in the development of partnerships between universities and the business community, systematize the main internal and external stakeholders of cooperation between universities and entrepreneurs, identify the main results of interaction in the context of each stakeholder, and also determine the regional effects of developing partnerships between higher education and business structures. The adoption of measures aimed at achieving these effects, according to the author, helps to reduce the level of divergence of Russian regions.