Abstract
As universities attempt to expand their relevance by engaging with local and regional societal challenges, various kinds of partnerships are emerging. A broad range of stakeholders, from both the university and the community, are typically engaged in and influence the development, implementation and perpetuation of these partnerships. This paper juxtaposes analysis of three community-university partnerships in Worcester, Massachusetts, USA, paying particular attention to the partnerships’ stakeholders, and to their relative importance. This research builds upon current understandings of critical factors in partnership sustainability, as these three partnerships have different goals, involve different university and community stakeholders, and are at different points in their organisational history. The fact that they share the same context – the same city – offers a unique opportunity for comparative case study analysis. The theory of stakeholder salience is used to explain findings about partnership sustainability and to make suggestions for strengthening existing partnerships. Specifically, we argue that stakeholder power and legitimacy, along with stakeholder urgency, are key factors in sustaining community-university partnerships. 
 
 Keywords
 Community-university partnerships; economic development; community development; stakeholder salience
Highlights
This comparative review of the three partnership cases focuses on understanding variation among different university and community stakeholders
Higher education researchers and urban planners have established that social change occurs as a consequence of community-university partnerships and have emphasised that universities as well as their communities will be affected by such endeavours (Dewar & Isaac 1998; Silka 1999; Wiewel & Lieber 1998)
When communityuniversity partnerships are the unit of analysis, salience works differently: rather than predicting managerial behaviour, we suggest that stakeholder salience influences the power balance in the collaborative processes, which in turn appears to affect the sustainability of the partnership, as will be explored in the three case studies below
Summary
This comparative review of the three partnership cases focuses on understanding variation among different university and community stakeholders. The need for economic development was seen as urgent by government leaders, this urgency was distant from those board members involved in decision-making, further diminishing the salience of the City as a stakeholder and limiting the impact of the partnership over time.
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