Relationship between educational indicators and research outcomes in a panel of top twenty nations: Windows of opportunity

The objective of the study is to examine the empirical relationship between educational indicators and research outcomes in top twenty nations of the World in terms of number of publications, citations and patents. The literature on higher education is useful in expressing the general and visible characteristics of a research domain, but cannot reveal the possible interaction between educational reforms and research outcomes. In order to overcome this limitation, the current study employed a panel cointegration technique to evaluate the long-run relationship between educational indicators and research productivity over a period of 1980-2011. The results reveal that educational indicators act as an important driver to increase research productivity in the panel of selected countries. The most promising educational factors i.e., higher education enrolment increases GDP and number of publications by 0.898% and 1.425%, respectively. Similarly, higher education expenditures per student increases research and development (R&D) expenditures, number of citations and number of patents by 1.128%, 0.968% and 0.714%, respectively. Finally, increasing school-life expectancy contributed to researchers in R&D by 0.401%. The study concludes that there is a window of opportunity to equip the youth with necessary skills to ensure a sustainable future for the nations. Higher education empowers and enables students to compete in a highly competitive and interconnected world through research and innovations, which are the drivers of new ideas, businesses and economic growth.