The expansion of the innovation space of universities is one of the most urgent and poorly studied problems in the scientific literature. Often, this deep phenomenological problem is replaced by narrower, practice-oriented research aimed at solving short-term tasks of improving the efficiency of innovative activities of the university, for example, by increasing the number of innovative projects based on existing scientific schools. Sometimes due to the multiplication of student startups at the university, the development of which usually ends at the incubation stage and does not have its continuation through their inclusion in the country’s innovation system, which is why universities do not make a worthy contribution to the national economy. At the same time, the experience of the most advanced universities in developed countries shows that modern Higher School has risen to a higher stage of its development thanks to the implementation of full-fledged innovation activities, which allows universities to integrate into both the national and global innovation system. The history of Silicon Valley is quite indicative in this regard. Having emerged based on Stanford University and becoming an example of the successful creation of an effective system for the production and implementation of innovations in the field of microelectronics. It ensured the rapid development and subsequent expansion of the innovation space of the university, securing for it the recognition of a world leader for many decades. This article is devoted to the study of the problem of spatial expansion of the scale of innovative activity of modern universities, the clarification of the conceptual apparatus and the theoretical justification of the conceptual provisions of such an innovative expansion of higher education. The article is based on the author’s research work previously presented to the scientific community, done jointly with prof. V. I. Lyachin, and devoted to the categorical definition of the phenomenon of innovation space [1]. In this connection, this article contains some repetitions from this earlier work, which is necessary to focus on new aspects of the problem considered in the past, concerning the clarification of key research concepts, such as:» innovative space of the university and «expansion of the university innovation space». At the same time, considerable attention is paid to the refinement of methodological approaches to the categorization of the innovation space. They are presented in this study in a more detailed form, which allowed to not only clarify and deepen the semantic content of the previously introduced concept, but also to obtain a detailed definition of the desired category «innovative space of the university». The article is mainly theoretical and methodological in nature, therefore, it contains only the most general conclusions and provisions that can expand the methodology and theory of cognition of the process of expanding the innovation space of higher education, and not specific recommendations designed to solve particular problems of the functioning of the university innovation system
Keywords: categorical definition of the concept s «innovation space» and « university’s innovation space»