Universities, the Second Academic Revolution and Regional Development: A Tale (Solely) Made of “Techvalleys”?

Abstract

Universities are crucial organizations in the knowledge society. As such, a new social contract between academia and society is being developed, inducing significant dynamics of change in academia. Change is configured by the integration of economic development in the mission realm of universities, together with teaching and research, which set off an academic revolution. This revolutionary move within academia is being scholarly analysed mostly from the perspective of technology transfer and spin-off firms' development. Taking into account the nature and challenges of the contemporary society, this paper acknowledges that these dominant approaches to the changing academic mission provide an incomplete picture of the role universities can play in development processes. Accordingly, it uses a broader perspective on the academic revolution in order to detail the developmental role played by higher education and the relevant development resources that universities can provide and left out of the mainstreamed picture. It suggests that the need for broadening the perspective gains increased relevance when trying to know more about the role universities play in regional development. It asserts that universities, as regional development agents, are essential to help regions to combine and mobilize the knowledge and relational resources that nourish the capacity for collective action, i.e. to build up regional institutional capacity.