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.