Сутність та особливості міжнародного співробітництва у сфері вищої освіти в Україні

International cooperation in higher education has a direct and significant impact on the international authority of the state, its integration into the world community, and the attraction of foreign investment. It covers a wide range of activities, from education and science to academic integrity and other areas of activity. The relevance of researching the essence of international cooperation in higher education and the features of its administrative and legal support is determined by the need to increase the competitiveness of domestic education and science, the desire to occupy high positions in international rankings and attract foreign investment. The implementation of these tasks is complicated by the cumbersome procedures of international cooperation, the lack of clear mechanisms for the legal regulation of certain types of cooperation, and the insufficient development of theoretical provisions. Despite a significant number of scientific works devoted to the administrative and legal support of international cooperation in various spheres of social relations, as well as to individual aspects of the activities of higher education institutions, there are still significant gaps in the coverage of issues of its legal regulation in the field of higher education. This article opens a series of studies on this topic and is devoted to summarising the basic aspects of the essence and content of international cooperation in the field of higher education in Ukraine, in particular in the context of the specifics and content of the norms of current legislation. The main objectives of the study are: to reveal the key characteristics of domestic and foreign studies; to analyse the content of the concept of “international cooperation” and the specialised category of “international cooperation in higher education”; to summarise the features of this phenomenon and highlight its characteristic features in the Ukrainian context. In the course of the work, all tasks were completed and the author’s definition of the concept of “international cooperation in higher education” was formulated. The main legal relations that are its objects were also identified as follows: in the fields of law, education and educational activities, science and innovation, economics, humanitarian policy and investment.