No abstract

Active coalitions of regional stakeholders are at the heart of contemporary regional economic development policies, such as Smart Specialisation or Constructing Regional Advantage. These coalitions consist of actors from various organizations such as regional authorities, companies and higher education institutions that come together to achieve common agendas and advance their region. Accordingly, the numerous stakeholders are expected to work together seamlessly, build and implement strategies and thereby deliver regional development. However, by assuming that strategy formulation and implementation is straightforward, the challenges that lie within partnerships and the tensions that may arise between stakeholders can become neglected. Therefore, it is vital to understand tensions that drive towards situations in which strategy-building is not successful and 'black holes' of strategy-building emerge. By identifying the tensions between regional partners in the Twente region of the Netherlands, the aim is to understand how such stakeholder tensions affect regional development. It is assumed that by easing or resolving these tensions, stakeholder partnerships can contribute to the successful advancement of their region. The data for this qualitative case study are drawn from both research interviews and secondary sources.

Introduction: the challenge of universities contributing to peripheral regionsUniversities have been defined as important actors in today's knowledge economy since the 1990s, contributing to economic growth and development through knowledge production and collaboration with diverse stakeholders (Benneworth, Charles, & Madanipour, 2010;Etzkowitz & Leydesdorff, 2000). Nevertheless, universities' success is at least partly a function of their incredible organisational complexity (Lewis, Marginson, & Snyder, 2005) and there has been little consideration in conceptualising universities as regional organisations of how their complexity affects their regional engagement. In failing to consider this complexity, scholars and policy makers implicitly assume that it is enough for universities to adopt a strategic regional engagement position, whilst in reality universities face various difficulties when asked to co-ordinate action around their knowledge production and circulation. It is this organisational complexity, and its implications for universities' regional contributions, that this volume seeks to address.Universities are knowledge-producing organisations with very decentralised organisational structures, Weick (1976) describing them as being "loosely coupled". In this volume, it is not just institutions that have the formal title of university, but all kinds of higher education institution (HEI) that blend teaching and research, thereby also encompassing universities of applied science, university colleges, specialist higher colleges (e.g. for teachers, musicians or artists) 1 . Accordingly, different academic disciplines and areas (Becher and Trowler (2001)'s "academic tribes") have very different

The emergence of collaborative approaches in innovation policy and regional governance has increased expectations for universities to engage in strategy making and assume broader roles and responsibilities. Nonetheless, complexities inherent to the policy process, regional context and universities’ own institutional and organisational capacity are often ignored or under-explained when framing universities’ roles. Although these roles are frequently introduced, they have been superficially conceptualised in the literature. This study develops a deeper theoretical and empirical understanding of universities’ contributions in the different stages of regional innovation strategy processes. Through a comparative case study of four European universities, it explores the variation of these roles by policy stage and university actors involved in the strategies. Findings suggest universities have expanded to perform new planning-related roles (e.g. consultation, mediation) and that diverse factors (e.g. the regional context, such as urban versus peripheral) determine their participation in regional strategies. However, strategic coordination within universities and with regional bodies is needed for the optimisation of their engagement in the regional governance process. JEL Codes: I23, I25, O20, O30, R58

There is increasing interest in the question of how different stakeholders develop, implement and lead regional upgrading processes with the concept of place leadership emerging as one response to this. Simultaneously, universities face growing expectations that they will contribute to regional development processes – often through their collaborative relationships with other regional stakeholders. But universities are complex in terms of their internal and institutional structures, which undermines their capacities to enact coherent place leadership roles. We seek to understand how strategic leadership in universities can contribute to innovation and regional development in the context of the fundamental institutional complexity of universities. We address this through a qualitative, explorative case study comparing six European regions where universities have sincerely attempted to deliver place leadership roles. We identify that the elements of agency and alignment are vital in that: firstly, university leadership has to align with regional coalitions on the one hand and internal structures on the other hand, and secondly, this leadership must give individuals agency in their regional engagement activities.