University Complexity and Regional Development in the Periphery

Abstract

Higher education institutions (HEIs) located in peripheral areas tend to struggle when it comes to attracting talented students, staff, and competitive funding, and they often lack in-house research capacity, which limits the developmental roles they can play in their host regions. This, in turn, generates a set of internal and external tensions that universities need to address in their quests for legitimate places in the increasingly competitive domestic and international higher education field, as well as in their immediate geographic surroundings. Building on earlier work in the field, combining seminal insights from organisational and higher education studies, this chapter provides a broad conceptual framework against which the case studies that form the bulk of this volume can be assessed and interpreted. In addition, the chapter provides a brief snapshot of the case regions and HEIs.