Planning is a process of defining goals and identifying means and methods to achieve them, effective and relevant to future operating conditions, and therefore a diagnosis of a current situation, design and choice of goals, and ways to reach them. The main substance of this publication is to present research methods (methods of prediction) relating to the creation of the future of an organisation, especially a political organisation, or a country. They are: strategic planning and strategic review. In addition, the problems relating directly to the above methods such as limits to grand strategy, the Black Swan effect, the Tsunami effect, and the arguments against normative methods will be presented.

The research focuses on the perspectives of development of the strategic management in Ukrainian higher education. Strategic management is widely used by European higher education institutions and cannot be avoided by Ukrainian institutions if they are going to develop for a better future. Ukrainian higher education institutions are in the transition state and their understanding of strategic management is at the initial stage and further evolvement of the strategic management in Ukrainian higher education requires reforms from the state and willingness of the higher education institutions to accept the challenges of the modern environment.

Mission statement is an element of the strategic management, the basis for the strategic development of university. Mission statement provides orientation and increases the motivation of the members of university. The results of the research prove that the mission statement of universities must be developed in an open discussion with the participation of the members of university. The most popular commitments of the mission statement are equal rights and opportunities for men and women, internationality, unity of research and teaching, quality assurance, interdisciplinarity. Analysis of the content of mission statements which were formulated during the last years shows that they propose a partnership relationship between the administration of university and its members.