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.