European Regional Science Association
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European Regional Science Association
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The abstract for paper number 532:
Ingi Runar Edvardsson, University of Akureyri, ,, Jan-Evert Nilsson, Blekinge Institute of Technology, , Sweden, Åke Uhlin, University of Vestfold, ,
The role of Universities in Regional Development: Comparing Three Regions with New Universities
For a long time the number of universities in the Nordic countries was constant. Back in the 1950s and 1960s a small number of new universities were founded and in the 1970s a significant larger number of university colleges were established. These structural changes of the university sector started a debate about the need to concentrate the research activity to the large and old university. Their size was considered as a guarantee for high quality in research. In this way the university system become a two level system with a restricted number of full-scale universities with a substantial research capacity and a larger number of university colleges with no or little research. In the beginning of the 1980s most regions in the Nordic countries have their own university or university college.
Regions, which still did not have a university college of their own, were primarily regions with relatively small towns. Many of those regions were given a university college in the late 1980s. These young new universities are still small. From that point of view one may expect them to exert only small impact of regional development. In the paper we focus attention on three such regions and universities – the University of Akureyri in North-East Iceland, Blekinge Institute of Technology in South-East Sweden and the University college of Vestfold at the East-Coast of the Oslo fjord. These universities were established in the late 1980s and early 1990s and one important argument for establishing them was their expected impact on regional development.
The three universities’ common denominator is, that they are young and small. In most other aspects they are different. National and regional setting, the size and specialization of the universities, management and organizational culture, access to research funds, etc. are all different. From that point of view it is hardly surprising that they play different roles in their regional innovation systems.
In spite of all these differences there are similarities concerning the impact of the universities. The foundations of them changed the image of the regions. When the three regions got their universities they gradually changed from being traditional industrial regions with no academic traditions to become modern regions based on knowledge based production. The universities gave promises both of a transformation of the production structure and of a change in the social structure.
The universities main regional impact has been through the supply of qualified labour. The structure of the supply reflects the educational programmes at different universities. It seems that that the research at the university has been of minor direct importance for regional development. However, it may have an important indirect importance as a mean to secure high quality in education.
There is one important difference between the regions. In Akureyri and Vestfold it is impossible to identify a break in the development pattern after the university was founded. The university seems primarily have strengthen the existing pattern in the region. The situation is different in Karlskrona/Ronneby, where the founding of the university college coincided with the breaking up fro m a long period of stagnation. One interpretation is that the university college with its ITC profile caused this turn around. However, such a statement is based on a mechanical view of social and economic processes. From the point of view of an organic perspective the picture seems different. The university college was one important pawn in the game. The founding of Soft Center and the location of a mobile operator in Karlskrona are two other important pieces. It was the coincidence of these three actions combined with fortunate circumstances like a fast growing market for mobile telecommunication and the growth of Ericsson. It was all these pieces together which made the expansion possible.
Unfortunately full paper has not been submitted.