Educational Policy of Ukraine Regarding Optimization of Higher Educational Institutions at the Expense of Creation of Innovative Centres of Higher Education

The article defines public-private-civil partnership as a principle of involving all interested parties in the process of management and reform of higher education at the local level; the reasons for optimization of higher educational institutions due to demographic and economic crises that worsened in 2022 as a result of the armed aggression on the territory of Ukraine, have been clarified; the options for optimizing higher educational institutions are proposed (a standard one – reorganization with the joining of a number of small branch institutions to a large university; collegial – creation of new institutions of higher education on contractual collegial conditions following the example of universities in Great Britain) as well as possible organizational and legal forms of their further functioning; the need to use quality performance indicators during decision-making related to the reorganization of the university is outlined; the criteria for the optimization of higher educational institutions, which are characterized by quantitative indicators (the contingent of the recipients of higher education and the number of residents of the territorial community where the educational institution is located) are theoretically analysed.