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 recent failure to deliver the Lisbon agenda has led to much soul-searching within Europe (cf. The Sapir Group, 2005 ). This failure has enlarged the gulf between the limited number of successful knowledge regions, and those regions for whom globalisation has brought further anxiety, job...