Abstract
State universities are increasingly being transformed from institutions with traditional teaching and research responsibilities to have a third, societal role in sustainable regional and economic development. In doing so, universities support knowledge spillovers to improve sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystems that benefit economic revitalization or further development of regions. At the same time they promote stakeholder involvement in crucial governance processes at the regional level. Based on a comparative case study design building on three cases in Germany, our research analyses these interdependencies focussing on university-linked support programmes for sustainable entrepreneurship and the effects on sustainable regional development. Our findings provide a nuanced view clarifying the different roles universities have, how knowledge spillovers are created, and what outputs, outcomes, and effects are realized at the regional level and beyond. Specifically, we demonstrate that depending on the regional context, different configurations, pathways, and intervention points of universities may equally improve sustainable entrepreneurial ecosystems.
Highlights
As part of a longer-term global trend, state universities in Germany are being transformed from institutions focussing on teaching and research to increasingly assume a third role in sustainable regional and economic development (Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff 2000; Abreu et al 2016)
We focus the analysis on how university-related support programmes for entrepreneurship contribute to sustainable development of regions in terms of supporting a balance of economic and socio-ecological benefits in the region (e.g. Cohen and Winn 2007; Wagner and Schaltegger 2010)
The unit of analysis highlights that, by covering the entire process from inputs to impacts, we cover two units of analysis: inputs to outputs occur in the realm of the university-linked support programmes, while outcomes and impacts relate to the larger system in the sense of sustainable regional development
Summary
As part of a longer-term global trend, state universities in Germany are being transformed from institutions focussing on teaching and research to increasingly assume a third role in sustainable regional and economic development (Etzkowitz and Leydesdorff 2000; Abreu et al 2016) In doing so, they are conceived to much more strongly support knowledge spillovers and as part of this to promote stakeholder involvement in governance processes at the regional level. Two units of analysis are applied: the university-linked support programme and effects on sustainable regional development These are related to the knowledge spillover theory of entrepreneurship (Agarwal et al 2007, 2010), different functions in entrepreneurial ecosystems and innovation systems (Stam and Spigel 2016; Markard and Truffer 2008) and a differentiation of effects based on the theory of change (Carman 2010; Funnel and Rogers 2011; McLaughlin and Jordan 1999). The paper finishes with a discussion and some overall conclusions (Section 6)
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