Assessment of the level of scientific interaction between pedagogical universities and educational development institutions

Introduction. Pedagogical universities and educational development institutes (EDIs) have a single activity space. However, the interaction in the scientific field between these educational institutions currently needs to be improved, and this requires an assessment of the current level of interaction. The research purpose is to analyze the current level of scientific interaction between pedagogical universities and EDIs. Materials and methods. The level of interaction between organizations was assessed in accordance with the model by L. Borrell-Damian et al. by three parameters: 1) the content of joint activities; 2) legal aspects of interaction; 3) the main forms of communication. The study involved EDIs and pedagogical universities subordinate to the Ministry of Education of the Russian Federation from 46 regions of Russia (35 EDIs and 20 pedagogical universities), which representatives filled out a questionnaire using Google Forms. Results. The study shows that in scientific interaction, educational institutions primarily use its short-term options, among which scientific-practical conferences were most often indicated (70% of pedagogical universities and 74.3% of EDIs). Long-term options for scientific interaction are used much less often than short-term ones (the differences are significant for p≤0.0001, χ2EDIs=32.08, χ2pedagogical universities=1.54). The availability of a network interaction agreement was indicated by 45.7% of representatives of the EDIs and 25% of the pedagogical universities. Moreover, joint activities in scientific work plans is indicated by a significantly larger number of respondents: 50% of the pedagogical universities and 68.6% of the EDIs. The main communication option in the scientific sphere is an informal one, which is based on direct personal contacts (70% of the pedagogical universities and 77.1% of the EDIs). Formal communications are two times less common, the differences are statistically significant (χ2EDIs=20.63, χ2pedagogical universities=14.4, p≤0.0001). Conclusion. The current system of scientific interaction between pedagogical universities and EDIs may be assigned to the project level, since it is built on informal personal communications, focused on individual scientific projects with limited implementation periods, which are implemented with the execution of short-term contracts. Raising the level of partnership interaction up to a strategic one will increase the productivity and efficiency of scientific partnership.