The Role of Universities in Urban Regeneration: Reframing the Analytical Approach

Abstract

Universities have resources for urban dynamics that are difficult to provide by other means. For this reason, these organizations are crucial actors in urban regeneration. This article sets out a conceptual framework for the analysis of the role played by higher education institutions in urban renewal initiatives. It is based on an integrated analysis of the uses of the university both as promoters of business innovation and in terms of their civic and social outcomes. Urban regeneration of cities in decline is used as a “strategic research site” to understand universities’ potential. The discussion is organized around four types of contributions: physical infrastructure, human resources, economic development and civic engagement. The debate enlightens the options for integrating universities' capabilities as an asset for urban regeneration and sets out implications for the institutionalization of practices and decision-making in this field.

Acknowledgements

This paper is part of the grant CSO2010-14880 funded by the Spanish R&D National Scheme. The paper has benefited enormously from the discussions of the COST Action TU0803 “Cities Regrowing Smaller (CIRES): Fostering Knowledge on Regeneration Strategies in Shrinking Cities across Europe”. The authors also acknowledge the comments on earlier drafts received from Peter Franz and two anonymous referees.

Notes

For clarification purposes, in this article HEI is considered a synonym of universities and other higher education organizations and public research laboratories.

We follow Merton's (1987, p. 2) notion of strategic research site as “(…) research  materials, sites, objects, or events that exhibit the phenomena to be explained or interpreted to such advantage and in such accessible form that they enable the fruitful investigation of previously stubborn problems and the discovery of new problems for further inquiry”.

The concept of third mission is normally used to refer to the varied set of activities outside the two traditional core functions of universities: formal teaching and scientific research. They encompass a complex group of tasks of very different nature. Some authors argue that a “fourth mission” is emerging (Goddard, 2009), trying to differentiate the social purposes from the direct commercial activities. Nevertheless, given the difficulties for disentangling some social and economic benefits at local level, we prefer to use the term third mission or third stream.

The vision of a deeper role of the HEIs in regional development is also clearly stated in the preparation guidelines for the strategies for the 2014–2020 programming period, especially those under the RIS3 programme (European Commission, 2010).

Although it can be argued that all the above components may have economic and social implications, for analytical purposes it is worth dealing with them separately.

Shrinking cities are defined as “populated areas that on the one hand faced a population loss and on the other hand are undergoing economic transformation with symptoms of structural crisis” (Martinez-Fernandez et al., 2012). In addition, other related situations are population and productive dynamics that results in stagnation process.

The place-based civic leadership can be broadly defined as any activity that leadership serves a public purpose at a given location. In simple terms, can be distinguished from other types of leadership that are a-territorial (Hambleton, 2011).