The study of universities' role in regional engagement has traditionally been focusing on exceptional cases. This book presents a reconceptualization which embraces its underlying complexity and proposes a roadmap for a renewed research agenda. Starting from the grassroots level of universities'...

The study of universities' role in regional engagement has traditionally been focusing on exceptional cases. This book presents a reconceptualization which embraces its underlying complexity and proposes a roadmap for a renewed research agenda. Starting from the grassroots level of universities'...

Social innovation is once more an increasingly popular notion circulating as an apparent means to solve the Grand Challenges of the 21st Century. But this common-sense idea of social innovation is based on a quasi-concept, where processes of innovation are absent. To restore some academic rigour...

Some universities and departments have been very successful in stimulating university spin-off firms (USOs). This has persuaded policy makers and university administrators to devote considerable resources to improve universities' capabilities to promote USOs, but with little tangible results....

Social innovation is once more an increasingly popular notion circulating as an apparent means to solve the Grand Challenges of the 21st Century. But this common-sense idea of social innovation is based on a quasi-concept, where processes of innovation are absent. To restore some academic rigour...

In the past decade, the literature on transitions towards sustainable socio-technical systems has made a considerable contribution in understanding the complex and multi-dimensional shifts considered necessary to adapt societies and economies to sustainable modes of production and consumption....

There is an increasing recognition that there is a class of problems that society must solve urgently in the twenty-first century if humanity is to survive into the twenty-second century—the so-called ‘Grand Challenges’. Science policymakers have been active in recognising these challenges...

This technical report presents the findings of the case study carried out in Northern Netherlands on the role of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the design and implementation of the Smart Specialisation Strategy (RIS3). It is one of the case studies undertaken in the project Higher...