REGIONAL DIFFERENCES IN THE UNIVERSITY NETWORK IN BULGARIA ACCORDING TO THE INDICATOR OF “INSTITUTIONAL INTENSITY”

Abstract

The indicator of university (institutional) intensity makes it possible to assess not only the presence of higher education institutions, but also the relationship between institutional capacity and the territorial and demographic potential of regions. In this way, spatial differences in the distribution of the university network can be interpreted not as a static outcome of historical development, but as a dynamic tension between educational supply and the actual “carrying capacity” of territories.

From a methodological perspective, the indicator of university (institutional) intensity is constructed as a relative measure that compares the number of accredited institutional structures of higher education with key territorial characteristics—namely population size and the area of administrative regions. This approach helps overcome the limitations of purely quantitative analysis, in which regions with a large number of institutions are automatically perceived as “more developed,” without considering the scale of the territory and the demographic base on which this institutional capacity operates.