Universities and Regional Economic Development : Engaging with the Periphery

This book explores how universities in less successful regions contribute to processes of regional economic development and innovative growth.

Universities are complex organisations, and can have difficulties in producing co-ordinated action around their knowledge production and circulation activities. Given an emerging emphasis on global status within higher education, there is also a risk that academics might be encouraged to de-prioritise regional engagement activities.

This volume will be the first book to explicitly foreground this tension, taking a comprehensive comparative overview of universities in European economically peripheral regions, and making suggestions for developing better – and more place-specific – policies for improving these university-regional collaborations.

In a knowledge-based economy, universities are vital institutions. This volume explores the roles that universities can play in peripheral regions, contributing to processes of regional economic development and innovative growth.

Including a series of case studies drawn from Portugal, Norway, Finland, the Czech Republic, Estonia and the Dutch-German border region, this will be the first book to offer a comprehensive comparative overview of universities in European economically peripheral regions. These studies seek to explore the tensions that arise in peripheral regions where there may not be obvious matches between university activities and regional strengths.

Aimed at academics, policy-makers and practitioners working on regional innovation strategies, this volume brings a much-needed sense of realism and ambition for all those concerned with building successful regional societies at the periphery of the knowledge economy.