Challenges of University-Industry cooperation in Albania

Abstract

Purpose: Albanian universities have a rigid experience especially when it comes to their effort to become competitive and respond to market demands. Today, it is a necessity for Albanian universities to become dynamic academic units, to go on an entrepreneurial path and to affect innovation in the region. This paper aims to measure the perception of university management staff regarding the challenges and barriers that appear in university-industry cooperation. It shed light to the identification of factors that motivate the academic staff toward such cooperation  Study design/methodology/approach: This paper implies a qualitative based methodology and relies on the methods used by the ERASMUS + CBHE ‘KALCEA’ project. Questionnaires used on KALCEA Project collect data from universities, businesses and research centres. The questionnaires pose a set of standard questions as well as a set of tailored questions for each of the three categories. The questionnaire was completed by the high management staff of universities in the period June-July 2022. From 39 universities and higher education colleges established in Albania, the questionnaire was sent to 22 institutions and were received answers from 16. Respondents are positions of rector/vice-rector/dean. Findings: One of the great challenges of the current high education system is to demonstrate capacity in adapting itself to the societal changes and its new emerging economic demands. Nowadays, in higher education institutions in Albania, the biggest challenges are internationalization, connection with industry, commercialization of knowledge and academic entrepreneurship. Originality/value: Findings of the paper have interest for universities, industry, and politicians in Albania. They go in line and add value to the new Albanian law on HEIs (2015) which provides more authonomy to Departments and poses challange for them to cooperate with industry and act entreprenerially