Review of Regional Research - Call for Papers - Special Issue: The changing role of universities in the context of regional sustainability transformations

Guest editors:
Gesa Pflitsch*, Ridvan Cinar*, Maria Tsouri*, Verena Radinger-Peer** 
*Western Norway University of Applied Sciences, Norway 
**University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), Austria

Over the past four decades, universities have been recognized as key actors in promoting regional innovation and (economic) development (Uyarra 2010). Initial approaches to third mission emphasized commercialization activities, technology transfer, investment in start-ups and technological innovation, often using the notion of an “entrepreneurial university” (e.g., Clark 1998, Etzkowitz 2004). More recently, however, universities are also expected to go beyond an understanding of the third mission based solely on techno-economic rationality (Cinar and Benneworth, 2021). As “engaged universities” they are supposed to collaborate with broader segments of society (e.g., public, cultural, and civil society organizations), contribute to a greater variety of innovation activities (e.g., social, green) and actively involve themselves in regional governance activities and collaborative policy making (e.g., Benneworth 2012, Trippl 2015, Fonseca and Nieth 2021, Nieth and Radinger-Peer 2022, Cinar 2022). 
In parallel, a growing body of literature indicates the increasing involvement of universities in regional or urban sustainability transformations (e.g., Sedlacek 2013, Trencher et al. 2013, Radinger-Peer and Pflitsch 2017). Within this line of research, various studies have demonstrated the way universities contribute to the generation of transformative knowledge and place-based solutions; through co-creation, transdisciplinary research, or other participatory methods (e.g., Larsson and Holmberg 2018, König 2015, Purcell et al. 2019). Nevertheless, it becomes apparent that these activities are often rather fragmented and driven by particularly engaged individuals in silo instead of being part of an overall strategy (Pflitsch and Radinger-Peer and 2018). Yet, there has recently been an increasing pressure from both within universities but also their broader institutional contexts to play a stronger and more systematic role in regional sustainability transformations (Soini et al. 2018, WBGU 2011). 
Overall, we observe a broadening of universities’ third mission strategies from an entrepreneurial towards an engaged model on the one hand and increasing centrality of regional sustainability transformations in third mission debates on the other. This special issue will therefore explore potential synergies between these two developments and how they affect universities’ regional role. We invite contributions that focus on one of the following key questions: 

1. What roles do entrepreneurial and engaged strategies play in contributing to regional sustainability transformations? To what extent are the two strategies complementary or mutually exclusive, and what does this mean for the role of universities in regional sustainability transformations? 
2. What kind of organizational structure within a university and its regional environment is needed for a university to perform a third mission towards sustainability? What are the differences in this respect between entrepreneurial and engaged universities? 
3. What role does the universities' environment (e.g., regional context, organizational field) have on the transformation towards an entrepreneurial or engaged university and its engagement in regional sustainability transformations?
4. Are certain types of universities more likely to build up capabilities - as entrepreneurial or engaged universities - for contributing to regional sustainability transformations?
5. How can the impact of entrepreneurial or engaged universities towards regional sustainability transformations be monitored, measured and/or grasped?

If you are interested in submitting a manuscript for the special issue, please send a 250-word abstract to Gesa Pflitsch (gesa.pflitsch@hvl.no). 
Deadline for abstract submission is July 15th, 2023.
Submitters will be informed about the decision until July 31st, 2023. 
Full manuscripts should be submitted until November 30th, 2023, through the journal submission system: 
https://www.editorialmanager.com/jfre/default2.aspx (this opens in a new tab). 
All submissions will go through a blind peer-review process.

Literature:
Benneworth, Paul. "University engagement with socially excluded communities: Towards the idea of ‘The Engaged University’." University engagement with socially excluded communities. Dordrecht: Springer Netherlands, 2012. 3-31.
Çınar, Ridvan. "Towards an engaged university in the periphery: Innovation, regional development and institutional change." (2022).
Cinar, Ridvan, and Paul Benneworth. "Why do universities have little systemic impact with social innovation? An institutional logics perspective." Growth and Change 52.2 (2021): 751-769.
Clark, Burton R. "The entrepreneurial university: Demand and response." Tertiary Education & Management 4.1 (1998): 5-16. 
Etzkowitz, Henry. "The evolution of the entrepreneurial university." International Journal of Technology and Globalisation 1.1 (2004): 64-77.
Fonseca, Liliana, and Lisa Nieth. "The role of universities in regional development strategies: A comparison across actors and policy stages." European Urban and Regional Studies 28.3 (2021): 298-315.
König, Ariane. "Changing requisites to universities in the 21st century: organizing for transformative sustainability science for systemic change." Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 16 (2015): 105-111.
Larsson, Johan, and John Holmberg. "Learning while creating value for sustainability transitions: The case of Challenge Lab at Chalmers University of Technology." Journal of Cleaner Production 172 (2018): 4411-4420.
Nieth, Lisa, and Verena Radinger-Peer. "Universities as strategic agents in regional path development? A European comparison." European Planning Studies (2022): 1-20.
Pflitsch, Gesa, and Verena Radinger-Peer. "Developing boundary-spanning capacity for regional sustainability transitions—a comparative case study of the universities of Augsburg (Germany) and Linz (Austria)." Sustainability 10.4 (2018): 918.
Purcell, Wendy Maria, Heather Henriksen, and John D. Spengler. "Universities as the engine of transformational sustainability toward delivering the sustainable development goals:“Living labs” for sustainability." International Journal of Sustainability in Higher Education 20.8 (2019): 1343-1357.
Radinger-Peer, Verena, and Gesa Pflitsch. "The role of higher education institutions in regional transition paths towards sustainability: The case of Linz (Austria)." Review of Regional Research 37.2 (2017): 161-187.
Sedlacek, Sabine. "The role of universities in fostering sustainable development at the regional level." Journal of cleaner production 48 (2013): 74-84.
Soini, Katriina, et al. "Universities responding to the call for sustainability: A typology of sustainability centres." Journal of Cleaner Production 170 (2018): 1423-1432.
Trencher, Gregory P., Masaru Yarime, and Ali Kharrazi. "Co-creating sustainability: cross-sector university collaborations for driving sustainable urban transformations." Journal of Cleaner Production 50 (2013): 40-55.
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Uyarra, Elvira. "Conceptualizing the regional roles of universities, implications and contradictions." European Planning Studies 18.8 (2010): 1227-1246.
WBGU Wissenschaftlicher Beirat der Bundesregierung globale Umweltveränderung Hauptgutachten. Welt Im Wandel – Gesellschaftsvertrag für Eine Große Transformation. Zusammenfassung für Ent-scheidungsträger; WBGU: Berlin, Germany, 2011.