What role should universities play in designing and establishing regional development policies?

Last October saw the European Week of Regions and Cities, in which the Chair for University and Knowledge Region participated in various activities.

The Chair attended the workshop on “Universities as agents of change in regions and cities”, which looked at the importance of universities in regional development. Specifically, it revealed the success of certain regions where universities have played key role in the creation of innovation eco-systems.

In a globalized and constantly changing world, the only way to be competitive and maintain sustained and sustainable growth is through knowledge, and regions must be capable to transform their knowledge into innovation. Furthermore, research universities are the largest generators of knowledge as they combine teaching and research in accordance with Humboldt’s model of higher education. Nevertheless, they can be classified into three types depending on their function and relation to society:

• Ivory tower universities: Institutions that focus on teaching and research but which do not have relationship with society
• Entrepreneur universities: Universities that generate new value because of they have adopted the triple helix model. In this sense, they use innovation to maximize their potential to transfer knowledge and increase their competitiveness in the manufacturing sector.
• Civic universities: Universities that play an active role in regional development, which can be seen in their direct impact on the society and economy of their immediate area of influence. Furthermore, they combine different missions through the quadruple helix model, thus contributing to the needs of their environment and to global trends.

Despite the clear benefits to society that civic universities bring and the reiterated attempts of the European Commission to highlight the importance of universities in the development of smart specialization strategies for region, there is still no formal mechanism for including them in the regional governance system. Consequently, it is imperative to emphasise the crucial role that universities have in the economic development and social progress of regional knowledge systems.

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An article by Aleyois Haro Peralta