MECHANISMS OF NEUTRALIZING EXTERNAL THREATS TO ECONOMIC SAFETY IN HIGHER EDUCATIONAL INSTITUTIONS
Currently, universities operate in a rapidly changing environment, growing requirements for their licensing and accreditation and increasing competition between regional universities. Active changes in the external environment have led to a great number of economic, managerial and economic problems, which has become an impetus for the development of a new scientific direction - ensuring the economic security of higher education institutions in conditions of high uncertainty of the external environment. There have been studied the complex of external threats to the economic security of universities and the development of a mechanism for their neutralization. There have been revealed the most typical external threats to economic security of higher education institutions in the region; the level of their danger was assessed by the methods of expert assessments and elements of matrix analysis on the example of one of the universities; the directions of neutralization of external threats to economic security of universities have been proposed. As the important elements of a concept “economic security of a university” there have been considered the protection from potential threats and risks, functioning of economic system of a university in terms of existing legislation, and complex measures aimed at personnel, administration and students security. It has been inferred that the list of identified threats and proposed measures is not constant, so there is needed an effective mechanism for their neutralization and prevention. The mechanism of neutralization and prevention of external threats to the economic security of higher educational institutions has been developed, which is the most important tool for ensuring their economic security. Introducing the proposed mechanism allows to foresee any potentially dangerous situation and to neutralize the expected negative effect of their implementation in a timely manner.