The effectiveness of the European Union's higher education policies on innovation in the information society: The case of Denmark

The subject of this thesis is to discuss contributions of the European Union's higher education policies in the process of innovation production in a European Union state Denmark in the third wave paradigm called information society. Information has taken the workforce and machine power in the information society and the concept of innovation has emerged with the developments in information and communication technologies. Innovation concept is the main catalyst of economic growth and development in the information society. Emergence of innovation activities are directly related to science and research infrastructure and higher education policies. The European Union aims to increase its innovation capacity both at the Union level and in the member countries by instrumentalisating higher education policies. Within this context, notion of information society was initially analysed, notion of innovation was explained and the European Union's higher education policies' contributions in innovation production was evaluated. Finally, contribution of these policies in innovation activities in Denmark which is a European Union state was discussed. In this study, it has been realized that the European Union's higher education policies contribute to innovation activities of member states positively. However, it has been understood that these contributions differentiate within each member country depending on their own research and innovation infrastructure and potential.