Putting Universities in their Place: An Evidence-based Approach to Understanding the Contribution of Higher Education to Local and Regional Development

There have been several attempts in recent years to create conceptual frameworks and models to help universities and policy makers understand the role and contribution of higher education to local and regional development. However, these models have failed to fully reflect or give insufficient attention to the impact of the regional context (economic, social, political), the policy environment for higher education and territorial development and the diversity of management and leadership structures of universities themselves. This has led to the development of static models that rarely work outside of the immediate context in which they were developed and therefore risk leading to design of policies that are not fit for purpose.

This Policy Expo is the result of work with partners in Europe, South America, Africa, Asia and Australia to develop a new approach, the ORPHIC Framework, to think about how the university can be adapted to the specificity of institutional and local contexts. The book examines:

• What are the different roles that universities play in local and regional development and how do these manifest themselves?

• How can we learn from comparing practice and experience internationally, and to what extent are policies aimed at promoting university–region relationships transferrable?

• What are the internal university factors, such as management and leadership, history, mission, structures, and the external factors, such as territorial development policy context, governance system, nature of the ‘place’, that might help us explain the nature of the relationship?

Louise Kempton is Senior Research Associate at the Centre for Urban and Regional Development Studies (CURDS), Newcastle University, UK.

Maria Conceição Rego is Professor in the Department of Economics and a researcher in the Centre for Advanced Studies in Management and Economics (CEFAGE), University of Évora, Portugal.

Lucir Reinaldo Alves is Professor in the Department of Economics and a researcher in the Centre for Regional Development (NDR), Western Paraná State University, Brazil and a researcher in the Centre of Geographical Studies (CEG) at the University of Lisbon, Portugal.

Paul Vallance is a Research Associate in the Centre for Regional Economic and Enterprise Development (CREED), Sheffield University Management School, University of Sheffield, UK.

Maurício Aguiar Serra is Professor of Economic Development in the Institute of Economics, University of Campinas, Brazil.

Mark Tewdwr-Jones is UCL Bartlett Professor of Cities and Regions, The Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA), University College London, UK.