RISK MANAGEMENT IN THE ACTIVITIES OF A MODERN UNIVERSITY: A COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF BRITISH AND UKRAINIAN EXPERIENCE

The characteristic of the regulatory, organizational and methodological basis of the implementation of risk management in the higher education of Great Britain and Ukraine at the national and institutional levels is given in the article through the application of a holistic set of theoretical and empirical methods. The regulatory framework and organizational structure of risk management in the universities of Great Britain and Ukraine are clarified; the typology of academic risks in the universities of Great Britain and Ukraine is characterized. Most of the focus is put on the identification and analysis of the high-priority risks which are incurred by modern universities in their activities, and common for all higher educational institutions in terms of the globalization, internationalization and massification of higher education. In particular, the key risks under study include the compliance risk, reputation risk, financial risk, the risks of student experience and staffing issues. The system of measures aimed at reducing the probability of occurrence of a particular risk type, or mitigating its consequences has been identified and generalized on the basis on the empirical data obtained as a result of applying the methods of analysis of the statutory and reporting documents of the British (the University of Oxford and the University of Cambridge) and Ukrainian universities (the universities of Sumy Region of Ukraine ‒ Sumy State University (SSU), Sumy National Agrarian University (SNAU), Sumy State Pedagogical University named after A. S. Makarenko (SSPU)). The effectiveness of implementing the risk management practice in the activities of the Ukrainian universities has been confirmed. The recommendations for the development of the risk management system in the Ukrainian higher education at the national and institutional levels are formulated based on the comparative analysis of the regulatory, organizational and methodological aspects of the issue under study.