SUMMARY
Mechanism is proposed for the formation and management of portfolios of research projects of higher educational institutions on the basis of a risk-based approach. The existing methods of innovation management do not allow to quantify all the many risks in the implementation of innovative projects, which does not allow to distribute them among various participants of such projects in such a way as to take into account the interests of all stakeholders of innovation activities. Statistics showed negative results on the conduct of scientific research and their implementation in Ukraine in recent decades. This situation is based on two main reasons – economic (insufficient financing) and organizational (ineffective management of public institutions). A mechanism of forming a portfolio of research projects of higher educational institutions has been developed, which allows for managing scientific activities of institutions of higher education based on risk management models. The paper proposes a method according to which the results of a research project are evaluated by indicators of strategic goals. An integrated project performance indicator is defined as the length of the trajectory traveled by the higher education institution towards the desired state. The proposed models and methods of managing the innovative activities of higher educational institutions were used to manage the scientific activities of the Odessa National Maritime University. The introduction of the portfolio management method of scientific activity made it possible to achieve the strategic goal of the university as part of the implementation of the mission of the innovation program. Potential projects, arranged in descending order of rating, form a portfolio in such a sequence – all research projects that were launched last year are included in the portfolio; research projects that were completed last year, but need to be improved (for example, addressing issues of implementation of the results) are included in the portfolio; “risky” projects for which the value of the goal attainability goal is less than 0.5 are excluded from consideration; scientific projects from those proposed by potential research leaders as their ranking decreases are included in the portfolio.