The role of digital transformation of higher education institutions in promoting regional economic competitiveness

The continuous expansion of the scale of the global digital economy has given rise to a large number of technical and skilled talents demand, and also triggered a profound change in the field of university education, and digital transformation has become an inevitable trend for the modernization of university education. This paper takes 291 prefecture-level cities in China as the research object, and analyzes the driving effect of the digital transformation of universities on regional economic competitiveness by combining relevant statistical data. On the basis of clarifying the significant spatial correlation between economic competitiveness and the clustering of universities’ digital transformation in each city, we constructed a spatial measurement model and used the partial differential method to calculate the spatial Durbin model to decompose the spatial spillover effect of the digital transformation of universities on regional economic competitiveness in each city. The results found that the regression coefficient between the digital transformation of colleges and universities and regional economic competitiveness is greater than 0 and passes the 1% significance level test, indicating that the digital transformation of colleges and universities can significantly improve regional economic competitiveness. Meanwhile, the regression coefficient of government subsidies and regional economic competitiveness is 0.6037 and positive at 1% significance level. It shows that the government has accelerated the process of accelerating digital transformation in universities by providing subsidies, which indirectly promotes regional economic competitiveness.