The role of HEIs in a Quadruple Helix collaboration for RIS3. White paper with policy recommendations

This White Paper presents a series of policy recommendations based on the results of the numerous stakeholder engagement and participatory activities forming part of the RE-ACT process and framework for regional collaboration. This was promoted during 2020-2022 within the Erasmus+ Forward Looking Cooperation Project “RE-ACT - Self-reflection tools for smart universities acting regionally” in the partner countries/regions involved and beyond (Portugal, Hungary, Slovakia, Romania, Italy). During the various steps, the process involved HEInnovate experts and Regional Authorities responsible for the smart specialisation strategies (RIS3) in their Regions (also from other regions than the ones to which the partners belong), HEI representatives (including professors and scholars, PhD students, HE students, administrative staff…), public authorities from the local level, businesses (including SMEs and university spin-offs) involved in the regional innovation ecosystem, and NGOs. During the activities provided by the partners, all these actors, based on their direct experiences, expressed their vision and presented their perspective about the role of HEIs in RIS3 and the functioning of the Quadruple Helix (QH) Collaboration. These views have been collected and reported in the several reports of the RE-ACT activities, then summarised in the Report on “Lessons Learned” and presented in this document as policy recommendations, finally commented in close connection with the contents of the most recent communications and policy documents from the European Commission about the societal and innovative role of HEIs (mainly European Commission, 2021a, 2022; Woolford & Boden, 2021; Tijssen, Edwards, Jonkers, 2021). The first section presents an overview about the role of HEIs in the context of the QH collaboration for RIS3. It is followed by the Policy context and Methodological approach, in which we provide a short description of the project, the institutional and policy context characteristics of the HEIs involved in RE-ACT ...