Universities and regional development: emerging conceptual debates and policy challenges

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Universities and regional development emerging
conceptual debates and policy challenges

• Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies,
  University of Twente, Netherlands.
• 16th October 2006
• Paul Benneworth, Centre for Urban and Regional
  Development Studies, Newcastle University

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Outline

• Universities and regional development a
  historical perspective
• Shortcomings of prior approaches
• Key research questions
• Reflection via four stylised cases
• Future research and policy directions

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Acknowledgements

• Economic and Social Research Council
• OECD IMHE programme
• Peter Arbo, Tromsø
• David Charles, John Goddard

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The evolving idea of the university and
evolving regional impacts

• Was the university ever an ivory tower?
• Studium generale practical education in law,
  medicine, theology
• Town/gown conflicts of medieval period
• Mobility of communities
• Universities and nation-building
• New nations, new universities (Copenhagen)
• Universities as a space of nationalism (Leyden)
• Reflecting or driving social reordering?

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The industrial university

• Berlin and the Humboldtian ideal
• Old universities overshadowed by Enlightenment
• Bildung and the liberal scholar
• Institutionalisation ? physical form, new estate
• Universities and national economic growth
• Land Grant Universities, Extension stations
• Producing social technical complexes (social
  visions)
• Optimisation vs lock-in

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The university in the age of the welfare state

• Emancipation and consociationalism
• Universities as a prerequisite for social freedom
• Public-isation of universities (Pittsburgh)
• Politicisation of university managers
• Democratic mass university (Delanty, 2002)
• Pressures of expansion in 1950s/ 1960s
• 1968 challenging bureaucratic order
• Social mission for university legitimacy

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Historical tensions

• Mobile community vs fixed estates
• Universalism of theory vs particular
  laboratories
• National economic needs vs local structural
  differences
• Isolation and independence vs interactions with
  elites
• Formal government vs informal governance

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University as layered organisations

• Vestiges of many eras in one institution
• Medieval, Humboldtian, Land Grant, democratic
• Universities shaped by shifting tensions
• Complex institutional responses to policy
  measures
• The ongoing importance of the social/ third
  mission of universities

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Historical third mission perspectives

• Nation-building/ reflection of nationalism
• Instrument for balanced territorial development
• Source of national elites
• Impulse for modernisation
• Driver of social justice (e.g. Green Revolution)

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Universities as social actors

• Rise of knowledge institutions in the knowledge
  economy
• Universities and totemic success stories
• Universities as contributors not parasites
• Universities as outputs of knowledge
• Universities as providers of commercialisation
  services

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Towards a 4th academic revolution?

• Economies of shortage 1973-1989?
• Social relevance as legitimacy for budget
• Commercial relevance as new income stream
• The rise of multi-disciplinarity Mode II
• Internationalisation, marketisation of HE
• Rise of the service economy and universities as
  Competitive Service Industry

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Shortcomings of 1st wave theories

• One-off, cross-sectional
• Fail to capture complexity of university/ society
  co-evolution
• Confuse cause and effect
• Are universities impacts greater in successful
  places?
• Universities in national political economies
• HEIs and national systems of HE

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The 2nd wave the entrepreneurial university

• Evolution and interaction
• From mode 2 to the Triple Helix
• Networks and system building
• Universities in national systems of innovation
• HE as a driver of economic growth
• Commodification of higher education
• Adding value via a virtual brand

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The rise of the regional university

• Territorial innovation models of the knowledge
  economy
• Regional innovation systems
• Regional political mobilisations and responses
• Universities creating territorial knowledge
  assets
• Region as a virtual knowledge laboratory

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Taxonomies of regional impacts

• Boucher et al, (2003, Regional Studies)
• Types of university vs. types of engagement
• Charles Benneworth (2001, HEFCE)
• Impacts of particular deliberate consequential
  activities
• Goddard et al (2006, OECD)
• Impacts on regional characteristics
  (innovativeness, skills, environment, culture)

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Universities joining it all up
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The role of the external space

• Scalar envelope and the global/ local
• Creating and fixing value in the regions
• External flows replenishing the regional
  knowledge pool
• Importance of institutional settings and the rise
  of multi-level governance

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Universities as a privileged site

• Providing an external stimulus to regional
  clusters
• Universities as a local marketplace for global
  knowledges
• Universities as boundary spamnning organisations
• Universities creating internal/ external
  overspills joining up T, R, C.

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Universities as system builders
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Ideal types and key tensions

• Global local (Bathelt, 1995)
• National regional (Marvin et al, 2006)
• Academic commercial political (Etzkowitz,
  2001)
• Disruptive evolutionary (Christensen, 1997)
• Generative vs transformatory (Gunasekara, 2006)
• Specialising vs general (Desroches, 2001)

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Practical pressures, theoretical tensions

• How are institutions responding to these new
  pressures?
• How is the nature of the university changing?
• How are universities regional impacts changing?
• What policies can effectively guide these change
  processes?

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New totemic sites (Leuven, 1425)

• KU Leuven key Flemish regionalism site
• Language question Eytskens
• KUL benefitted from Gewest policy
• Three waves of industrial policy, three waves of
  benefit
• Early massive success in valourisation
• 1bn to build entrepreneurship promotion network
• Multi-scalar strategies difficult to regulate
• Vlaams Brabant, ELAT, Eur Business Angel groupings

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Capital University in a Border Region (Lund, 1666)

• Initial stimulus for engagement crisis
• Regional government created a science park
  (IDEON)
• University remained focused on success
• Hard to ignore growing regional miracle
• Change in leadership ? chose openness
• Parallel process of regional devolution to Skåne
• University now shaping regional growth program
• Combining regional, national, EU funds

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University as Science City (Newcastle, 1871)

• Expertise in commercialisation to attract
  external investment
• Convincing the RDA of economic benefits
• Assembling massive eye-catching projects
• Income targets and the headroom fund
• Greater awareness of university benefits
• Partners have to invest in university strategies
• Planning the public realm?
• Local agencies as recipients of university
  paternalism

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The entrepreneurial university mk II (Twente,
1961)

• From TOP to Innovation Lab
• Making peripheral activities into core assets
• Stronger central management decisions
• Where are the 999 other flowers?
• Building allies to win external investment
• Conditioning policies to serve UT interests
• University creating regional agenda
• Triangle-Visie, Pieken in Oost-Nederland

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The 3rd wave university in practice?

• Entrepreneurial University Mk II (UT)
• New totemic sites (Leuven)
• Capital University in the City-region
  (Manchester)
• Polycentric Urban University (Lund-Öresund)
• Network University (Seinajoki)
• Federal University (3TU?)
• University as Gentrifier (Newcastle)

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3rd wave science policies

• Universities, clusters and innovation systems
• Regional science policy at the margins
• Universities as tools for urban regeneration
• Strategic national champions
• Chasing new cross-border investments (ESS)

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Wicked issues for policy makers

• Concentration vs. access
• Linkage of research teaching ? society
• Discovery vs. commercialisation
• Creating local benefits from state investments
• Value capture vs. lock-in
• Network support or inhibiting restructuring
• Zero-sum vs. transformative

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Future research agendas

• Universities delivering social inclusion?
• Universities the Tinbergen question
• Poor fit with trickle-down paternalism
• Commercialising the democratic university?
• Universities as political/ planning actors?
• Regional engagement as a scalar strategy?
• Filling gaps in regional governance structures
• Universities as spaces of possibility?
• Role of state actors in opening those spaces up
• Relationships with productivity growth