Universities as Facilitators of Sustainable Regional Development: The Role of Knowledge, Leadership and Governance

The question of how universities can support policy processes for sustainable development was addressed by Sabine Sedlacek, member of the Department of Public Governance and Management of MODUL University Vienna, during the 50th European Congress of the Regional Science Association International, which took place in Jönköping (Sweden) in August 2010. The goal was to filter factors enhancing sustainable development as well as obstacles and barriers.

Numerous studies focusing on innovation and entrepreneurship also assess how universities stimulate regional economic development. In these studies universities are seen as important actors within regional innovation systems (RIS). Within these RIS universities fulfill a knowledge production and transfer function besides their training and education (human capital) function. Studies on sustainable regional development are additionally focusing on governance issues and the role of different stakeholders within governance networks and their ability to contribute to a more sustainable development at the regional level. Universities are important governance stakeholders, since their administrators and faculty members are eligible partners for regional governments. Especially within the European Union, the role of institutions in fostering sustainable development at the regional level gained major importance through a multi-level governance approach in European regional policy. The focus on institutional cooperation and how this network cooperation leads to a more effective implementation of sustainable development is the subject of several research agendas focusing on governance for sustainable development. There is a lack of knowledge and expertise with respect to the links between certain institutions and the broader society, and hence their ability to foster sustainable regional development. In this regard universities can serve as facilitators between societal and other institutional actors. Sabine Sedlacek introduced an analytical framework which allows testing hypotheses extracted from existing theoretical and empirical literature about universities as key actors in advancing sustainable development.