Entrepreneurial Universities – the importance of regional context

Entrepreneurial and third mission objectives has slowly become mainstream drivers of how the universities evolving globally broadening the role of the universities compared to the latest, more Humboldtian model to an organization model where universities are more organically connected to society providing various services to diverse stakeholder groups addressing real life problems.

This transformation is supported in regional and country level within the EU and associated countries also the EU supports this through various policies and actions, for example within ERASMUS program, The European Universities Initiative, promoting the #HEInnovate self-assessment tool developed and maintained by the EU Commission and #OECD, #EIT promoting the so called Knowledge Triangle Model #KTI in all of their activities, several supported H2020 actions just to mention a few, and also universities themselves assemble into alliances to support each other through shared actions and experience.

As the concept gains increasing visibility and popularity, different funding and grant options are available for universities to accelerate the model transformation while different university ranking methods are also including indicators measuring entrepreneurial aspects of how a university operates and its performance, it is very important to highlight the fact, entrepreneurial university as a model cannot be interpreted by itself without universities being an ecosystem component. The Triple Helix Model was introduced in the 1990’s referring to the interaction between universities, business and governmental organizations as a necessity of innovation and an important factor of knowledge based economic development. Innovation capacity of a region correlates well with its GDP and the attractiveness of the region, consequently the talent mobility between regions, therefore building regional innovation capacity is an important overarching societal and economic objective and entrepreneurial universities are a beneficial tool to achieve this goal.

University business cooperation #UBC was always on the agenda of the universities as it could provide additional revenue streams for the university, however since the triple helix model has been introduced, the model to adopt it at system level is a next phase desired by not only directly involved stakeholders and individuals, but the broader society impacted indirectly. University business cooperation has many benefits for both sides,

·      in education offers potential for better alignment curricula and the skills of graduates with the labour market, improving employment pathways for students, and recruitment for employers as well as lifelong learning programmes for business;

·      for research, HEIs offer the greatest benefit to business as partner for innovation with a longer terms horizon as well as shorter term problem solving. Conversely, business offers HEIs insights, opportunities, data for high quality research and the ability to bring research into practice and create impact;

·      through valorisation, HEIs become part of a regional innovation ecosystem acting as a source of next generation innovations, high tech new companies and entrepreneurial talent for value chains of industry;

·      cooperation in management provides possibilities for improved regional and institutional governance, the sharing of facilities, equipment and other resources to better leverage strategic assets,

however, we shall never forget that components of a system disconnected are not equal to a well-maintained system of components, therefore we have still a lot to do.

Despite of there are many differences along the path, diverse available regional opportunities and industry, different cultural background, traditions and heritage, local policy and regulations, we have common goals at EU and global level that might relevant to us at regional level, such as providing meaningful and affordable mobility options for everybody access to and within #urbanmobility;  access to #rawmaterials and gain social licence to operate; addressing #climate change challenges and supporting the #greenenergytransiton, #healthyliving and #food or by contributing to reaching the #UNSDG  targets. We have a good start and progress transforming higher education to become more entrepreneurial in Europe, however we still facing many challenges ahead of us accomplishing transformational changes, like

·      (How to) Harmonise both local, regional and EU level policy and regulations and instruments available to achieve high level synergy and efficiency of the transformation process;

·      (How to) Connect and better align Smart Specialisation Strategies to university and regional development strategies;

·      (How to) Engage broader society groups being aware of and to actively participate in this transformation and become more directly involved and gain direct advantages;

·      (How to) Close the gap between regions and universities are progressed ahead and those are lagging behind by connecting them and find a viable and meaningful way to share and transfer knowledge and experience;

·      (How to) Measure the impact of entrepreneurial universities made on their region and local ecosystem and the residents of the region while providing feedback and pathways to improve.

I believe that with joint efforts but only with joint efforts we can succeed on this mission. Please let me know what do you think on the above topic, did I miss something, what would be a solution in your opinion for any of the above mentioned challenge?

Imre Gombk?t?