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The pervasive role of universities

Universities are increasingly recognised as essential and legitimate strategic actors as nnovation is brought to the centre of regional economic strategies (Arbo & Benneworth, 2007;

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Uyarra, 2010; Pinheiro et al, 2012). As complex organisations they assume various activities with socio-economic impact, being employers and purchasers of services; knowledge and human capital creation and transfer; research-led technological innovation; capital investment;

and impacting on the regional entrepreneurial, institutional and knowledge infrastructure (Drucker & Goldstein, 2007). This interactive character of relations between universities and other institutions within a region has been widely conceptualised under engagement models such as: the entrepreneurial university (Clark, 1998), enabling, through an enhanced development of linkages with external actors (namely businesses), to diversify universities’

funding base; the triple helix model of university-industry-government relationships (Etzkowitz et al., 2000), with these nodes interfacing supported by intermediates (e.g.

technology transfer offices); and the civic university model (Goddard et al., 2016), which emphasises community engagement and purposeful, institution-wide application of knowledge for the betterment of society. Aside from certain key differences, in all these conceptualisations the university emerges as a pivotal institution within a regional ecosystem, providing a key asset for competitive economic dynamics – scientific and technological knowledge. By generating an essential component of regional growth, universities become central interfaces, finding themselves at the nexus of innovation dynamics between policy, markets and other regional stakeholders (Edquist, 1997; Guile & Fosstenløkken, 2018; Rodríguez-Pose, 2013).

This grants them the privileged position to build innovation capacity within a region, as by working closely with multiple actors they are improving feedback mechanisms and learning dynamics that will improve their individual competitiveness and strengthen trust and network ties overall.

In lagging regions, universities are thus seen as vital players in their regeneration, not just having a ‘stake’ in their development trajectory, but potentially assuming a leading role in a fragmented institutional structure and landscape. Indeed, universities, especially in LDRs, may have a pervasive role through their regular missions of teaching and research, but also actively engaging with other institutional actors and mobilising innovation capacity through the incorporation of the third academic mission. A regionally engaged university holds a position of influence in interactive and collaborative innovation networks, identifying key agents in the system, exploring development resources, creating linkages and enabling collective action, all particularly relevant for LDRs. In this sense, universities are capable of tackling the two major challenges of LDRs pointed out by Rodrigues et al. (2001). They are uniquely positioned to animate inter-institutional relations, namely between the public and private sector, and they provide and capture the R&D knowledge with the potential of building regional innovation capacity.

Not all are optimistic about the regional role of universities however, with scepticism regarding their ‘boundary-spanning’ capacity to act as institutional intermediaries (Krücken, 2003), and a disenchantment regarding their ability to successfully respond to local needs, particularly in less-developed or peripheral regions (Bonaccorsi, 2016). In the first instance, Krücken (2003) considers universities’ organisational structure might not yet be adequately prepared to face the challenges and demands of the third mission, exhibiting a certain inertia in its arrangement and in its response to external needs. For Bonaccorsi (2016), a university’s strategic vision is

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inevitably linked to the international recognition of research excellence, a focus that might diverge it from regional problematics. The commitment of a university to its local economy will increase with the degree of growth and development of its surroundings (Goddard &

Chatterton, 1999). However, as stated by Arbo & Benneworth (2007), the absorptive capacity of university’s local partners, i.e., their ability to successfully integrate and utilise investment or knowledge, is relatively smaller in LDRs, representing a limiting factor on the possible impacts of university’s engagement.

The integration of a third mission of regional engagement presupposes organisational and managerial challenges for the university itself. This is particularly the case in a global higher education landscape, in which the quest for world-class universities raises competitive dynamics and shapes academic behaviour accordingly (Deem et al., 2008). Within LDRs, the low demand for advanced technical and scientific knowledge and the low financial dividends obtainable from regional engagement activities, diminishes the likelihood of the region being under focus, particularly by technology-related fields (Arbo & Benneworth, 2007). As a characteristically ‘loosely-coupled’ institution, the high autonomy of its academics leads to significant disparities between and even within fields – to fragmentation – hindering the application of a unified, coherent strategy for engagement (Gunasekara, 2006). Academics’

motivation to engage is necessarily influenced by the time they have available to do so, with greater pressure given to perform in teaching and research activities for career progression.

External engagement does not often yield satisfactory rewards, such as career progression, for individual academics, and the third mission inevitably tends to come in third place after research and teaching (D’Este & Perkmann, 2011; Rose et al., 2013).

Thus, albeit institutionalised, the third mission is not seamlessly introduced in the organisational framework and cultural setting of a university – “the interaction between academia and society does not occur spontaneously” (Rodrigues et al., 2001, p. 253), with certain prejudices needing to be overcome for it to work, both from the side of the university and from other regional actors. While a common issue in all regions, the lack of a supportive policy framework in LDRs for the development of such cooperative activities means there will be a greater difficulty in establishing this link. Universities can thus emerge as animateurs in the region (Pugh et al., 2016), as the task of devising an adequate strategy to foster links in an innovation network is mostly left to them. Universities in many LDRs are taking on this leading role, developing policies and strategies to promote engagement with their communities (Rodrigues et al., 2001). However, one must acknowledge the “complexities and challenges facing contemporary HEIs in their attempt to address the multiple and often conflicting demands from a variety of external stakeholders” (Kohoutek et al., 2017, p. 401). These range from the global and supranational to the national, regional and local levels, including the tensions and contradictions between different policy strands, namely education, science, innovation and development policies. Under these circumstances, whether the required changes at the organisational and behavioural level are enforced and become effective, is a matter of further analysis.

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