Between Excellence and Relevance: The Regional University Dilemma

Alex Usher: Hi everyone, I'm Alex Usher, and this is The World of Higher Education Podcast.
Over the past few decades, higher education has taken on a number of new rules. As we discussed with Ethan Schrum on this podcast over two years ago, in the years after World War II, universities became obsessed with showing how essential they were to solving society's problems. One of these problems, particularly as universities proliferated and started showing up in more and more distant locales was regional economic development.
This is a tough problem to solve. Universities are about the knowledge economy, and by and large, the knowledge economy runs most smoothly in places with significant population density. By definition, regional or peripheral institutions are located in places that lack this essential quality. So with whom can universities in these situations partner? It takes two to tango, a university and a community. And more generally, what kinds of things can universities in peripheral regions do to approve the economic fortunes of the places they serve?
Today my guest is Dr. Romulo Pinheiro. He's a professor of public policy and administration at the University of Agder in Norway. For years now, Romulo has been writing about how universities in different parts of Europe tackle this question. In our interview today, we go back and forth a bit about how peripheral institutions differ from metropolitan ones, how regional and global ambitions get intertwined at these institutions and how institutional and disciplinary structures do and do not affect how a peripheral university accomplishes its mission.
As a wannabe geographer, I found this discussion fascinating. Pay attention to the bits where Romulo starts diving into the intricacies of how institutions and academics weave together their global and local networks into complicated webs. And — let me underline this bit — how these webs depend crucially on something pretty simple: trust. But enough for me, let's turn it over to Romulo.
Uh, Romulo, your work often center usually centers around, you know, issues of, of, uh, universities and regional development and I guess, you know, it's, it's been 40 or 50 years now that that regional development has been seen as a, a role that higher education is supposed to play. But how does that development role differ between uni universities in dense, rural, sorry, dense urban areas and, you know, less dense, uh, rural areas. What's the difference in the role they have to play?
Romulo Pinheiro: So Alex, for universities to be able to engage with different types of regional actors, they have to be competencies on the other side. So, uh, universities differ in terms of their competencies and skills, right? In terms of the depth and breadth of the types of programs they use, the research groups as well as the traditions of regional engagement, but they also differ in their localities, right?
So, uh, usually you have a situation where universities in peripheral regions are thinner institutions and they are located in thinner institutional environments, meaning they, they don't have a lot of interlocutors with the same level of, of knowledge and skills, right? So that, that's already creates, uh, you know, a disadvantage, right?
So there's, so should we see the symbiosis between universities and regional, uh, and their regional settings? By and large, we see that strong institutions tend to be located in strong, uh, regional, uh, surroundings as well. Now, that's not to say there are a case of strong institutions in more peripheral settings, and what the literature tells us that for the most part, the, these regions don't have the absortive capacity to absorb both the graduates and the knowledge that comes from this thick institution.
So, John Hopkins is a case in point in, uh, in Baltimore, uh, and in Europe we have, for example, University of Lund. There's been a few studies as well. So the knowledge generated by these institutions tends to go away, uh, from the region because there's no regional capacity to absorb, um, you know, what comes out of university. So that, very different roles.
Alex Usher: Okay. Well to, seems to me there's two types of, of rural or, or peripheral institutions. Let me talk about one of them first, right? So, uh, smaller peripheral institutions, I'm thinking, you know, universities maybe in northern, Northern Norway, right? Couple thousand students. Um, they face tight budgets. They have limited research capacity.
Uh, more difficulty I imagine in attracting top talent. Maybe, maybe not in Norway, but in some countries that would, that would be an issue. Um, and yet they're often expect, expected to play an outsized role in regional development. How do they manage that tension?
Romulo Pinheiro: Yeah, so that's a great question and indeed many don't, right? So you are absolutely right that it, it, you know, we should move away from that idea of centers and periphery because there's also centers within the periphery. So there's also strong institutions in peripheral settings, right? In north nor, for example, we have University of Tromsø, so, which is a comprehensive research intensive institution, and there are many smaller regional colleges, you know, for example, uh, across the, the Nordic region that don't have that capacity. Traditionally, institutions have catered more for the applied needs of regional actors. They didn't have the research infrastructures, so they will get involved in, you know, what we call projectization, right? Smaller projects, um, you know, and that of course has, has, has limitations.
Other bolder institutions, they try to collaborate, right? So develop networks. Uh, what we see, for example, in, in Northern Europe is a situation where due to, uh, mergers, the institutions, the smaller ones are becoming amalgamated and parts of larger institutions, right? And that of course creates new possibility, new conditions, but also new tensions and dilemmas, because as institutions grow, and as you know, the larger the institution, the more globally oriented scientists, uh, uh, in mind that you have, uh, the less likely they are to be involved, uh, with regional issues. All things being equal as economists like to say. But in the end it also goes back to the idea of engagement and academic, the bottom up, right?
So this combination between what I've been argue, you can have all these great strategic plans and funding in place, but, if academics themselves, if what Burton Clark calls the academic heartland, uh, do not feel keen to be engaged with regional actors, you, you, you know, you can't pressure them.
Alex Usher: Okay, I'm gonna come back to that global, uh, dimension in a second. But, but let me, let me counter with something here. I'm not convinced that the larger institutions are nationally, necessarily more global, but they are probably necessarily more oriented towards basic research, right? Like as you get bigger and bigger departments, they get into bigger, and what's the uptake of basic research in peripheral areas? I mean, it just seems to me that, that there are, when you get past a certain institutional size or institutional complexity, it gets very hard to actually even talk with local communities because, uh, you know, the capacity for generating research is much bigger than the receptor capacity for it.
I remember, um, you know, one example I have when we were doing some work in Africa, um, you know, the, there was, there was one small private university outside Lagos that, um, you know, they had, uh, they, they'd sequenced the Ebola virus. And I said, well, can you know, can you work with local industries? He said, well, they said we can't work with the local pharmaceutical industry. 'cause in Africa the pharmaceutical industry is packaging and marketing. Right? Those are the only two things. So what happens when the science at a small regional institution outruns the receptor capacity of the local institution? Are there any good ways to manage that?
Romulo Pinheiro: Yeah, so it goes back to the example I gave earlier. For the most part, that knowledge tends to go away, right? To other regions or to other localities. This is a global dimension of
Alex Usher: Yeah.
Romulo Pinheiro: But this goes back to the point that you bring about the brokering role of universities, right? So the university has, or university actors have to engage in a process of translating those basic research findings and something that can be applied to local level. So how do they do that? There are different mechanisms, right? So one needs to have professors. Uh, you know, going back to this, they're more engaged and they're able to facilitate, say, a more theoretical, or analytical discussion into more concrete. The role of students is fundamental here. An aspect that has been somewhat neglected in the literature, right? In the end, the most important, what we call boundary spanners are actually students who spend time back and forth, as well as the role of graduates, former students, right? They have those networks with the professors and so on, so they play a very important role. But in the end, if those companies across the public and private sector don't have the need for that knowledge, if that knowledge is not relevant, then they will not use it, right? So there's, there's a tendency. So it's also up to the universities to try to make the basic knowledge, uh, if they are of course inclined, relevant to local actors. Um, in, in North Norway, we have a case of University of Tromsø, which has been able to do that, right? Bring that excellence and relevance together, where they look at, for example, uh, the Saami dimension or the Arctic fauna in flora or, or heart, uh, cardiovascular diseases. So, uh, taking aspects that are of relevance to the region and developing excellence around those areas. And in the process to develop also, um, institutional capacity, which helps them, uh, strategically profiling in a globally competitive world.
Alex Usher: Okay, so you're raising again that issue of, of global excellence versus regional relevance. Um, I mean, I'm sort of interested from a perspective of university strategy, what avenues do you have to make sure then that, that your institution is actually, um, balancing those two properly? Like what you've used, you used Tromsø as an example. Can you think of some others and are there some commonalities between them?
Romulo Pinheiro: Yeah. So I mean, university leaders have some tools at their disposable. As we know, most universities, particularly large universities, are very bottom heavy institutions, right? So, uh, they have a lot of autonomy and, and, uh, academics are, you know, relatively, uh, independent in, in pursuing. That being said, uh, they also follow incentives as rational actors, right? So there is something that, uh, you know. Uh, strategic leaders or, or university leaders can do to align those incentives, whether it, whether it is PhD students, whether it is, uh, you know, sabbaticals, uh, you know, what of the types of, of, of, of incentives to, to collaborate with visional actors.
Um, beyond Tromsø, so there are other examples that I've worked, uh, also in where Olo is another case in point. For example, in, in Finland there's a very interesting antidote, for example, going back to the networks where a study asked actors in Olo in Northern Finland, who are your most important collaborators, people at university mission, individuals from industry and local government. And then they went to another region, Northern Sweden, Umeå, which wasn't as regionally engaged. And they asked, who are your most important collaborators? And regional actors in the private sector mention other actors in the private sector and, uh, university academics mention other academics. Those are examples of disconnected, uh, you know, networks that are networking within their own silos, right? So there has to be sort of a synergy effect here, and the most, uh, successful, um, regional institutions are able to do that, right? One interesting caveat is when you ask them about do you see themselves, do they see themselves as regional, uh, universities? Most of them don't like that, that label. They say that we are first and foremost a university in the region rather than regional university. So there's some negative connotations with this. Too much, uh, closest to locality.
Alex Usher: Interesting. So you're, I think what I'm hearing you say is that there are some, I mean, we have to pay attention to incentives for uh, professors within the university to engage locally and, and form those, those local partnerships. Um, are there some specific institutional reforms that can achieve that? And how does, I mean, presumably a disciplinary, uh, mix, right? There's different, uh, incentives and different possibilities for collaboration in, in different disciplines. So, uh, how do you manage that engagement? How do you incentivize it effectively?
Romulo Pinheiro: Yeah. So there's been a, a long discussion within the field about what types of incentives, and I think, again, there is not the one size fits all, right? This has to be done, academics are incentivized very differently, but we know, uh, that for the most part, right, uh, money has a limited effect when compared to other professionals. Right? So it is more issues related to, uh, you know, whether you can have more autonomy or, or develop your research group or, or being able to set up a center. Uh, what we see now, for example, in the Nordic countries is an an orchestrated plan by the national funding and the regional funding agencies to ensure that, for example, any research application requires a buy-in from regional actors. So I cannot send an application to Norwegian Research Council, the Academy of Finland, without having partners from, you know, the region or the nation, right? Within the public and private sector. So those are structural mechanisms to ensure that if academics, you know, want to have access to important funding for their research and develop their research teams, they need to bring on board, um, those key actors.
The second aspect is this, uh, very strong emphasis, uh, in the last say, you know, seven to 10 years, especially after covid on co-creation, co-production of knowledge, right? Rather than regional role where you would involve regional actors towards the end of a research, uh, you know, journey, endeavor, now there's an attempt to involve these actors at the design stage, right? So, the researchers will go into a project already with some input and with questions, uh, understanding some of important incidents that are generated and then involving through a variety of mechanisms, regional actors, you know, uh, you know, in terms of workshops, send back exercises and so on to make sure there's feedback mechanism and, and those actors are involved.
So it's, it is a much more of an egalitarian, um, you know, uh, sort of ecosystem, but the way, the extent to which this is working, it's still an empirical question. We don't know the results, but at least those are the intentions.
Alex Usher: Um, you know, Romulo, you talked about this, this interface between the global and the local, right? And, and the global part of that is usually about relations between, uh, you know, academics in one part of the world and academics in another. And so, um, you know, that helps a, a, a local university, a university in a region act as kind of a window on the world for that region, right? It, it, it brings them into contact with, with these global networks. Uh, what's the right way to think about developing those networks effectively? I mean, I know in Europe right now we've got the, the European Universities Initiative, um, you know, and I think a number of those are, uh, you know, because they're, they're meant to unite institutions with similar missions, a number of them look like, uh, you know, alliances of universities and regions. Is this promising, is this the right way to go forward? Um, or, or is, or are these initiatives missing something?
Romulo Pinheiro: Yeah, so, so let me touch first on the issue of networks. So most of these networks are, uh, e emerged organically, right? And they are very much linked to the relationships that academics have with other academics or academics have with other regional actors, right? Students can also play a role here as, uh, you know, if they get employment, and of course you have your former students as part of regional government or industry. And of course the key element of course is trust, right? Uh, this is not new. Uh, trust takes time to, to generate. Um, so I think it's not easy if you are sitting in the director of a, of a university, uh, to be able to articulate a strategy, how are we gonna develop trust amongst these actors, right? You have to create conditions. So amongst other things, you know, maybe liberate some, or you need to identify who are your most engaged academics, you're more likely to engage students and so on. And, and then create a carbon ecosystem of all, you know, of bringing these people together. Uh, you know, uh, we, we used to say that the most important thing in regional engagement are it's to have money, to have lunches and dinners, right? That's where people get to know each other.
When it comes to the second part of your question, strategic alliances, I'm a bit skeptical to what extent these will benefit the regional engagement agenda, to be honest. Because even those alliances, like my own institution has right, with the name for them, uh, you know, which is very much for them, the regional actors, there is a tendency alliance become very inner oriented, right? And I tend to see, have a number of publications coming out now with another colleague where we see alliances are primarily collaborative exercises in order to be able to compete globally, right? So, um, and there's a tendency despite, you know, some efforts going on in terms of, you know, where there po policy labs for students involving regional actors around regional questions and so on. But I think there's a natural tendency, like with the academic drift of regional institutions that they become, um, other strategic imperatives outside the regional and the locality, uh, end, end up dictating their strategic priorities. That's my sense, but again, it's an important empirical question, which we'll have to, to, to see into in the future what the results are.
Alex Usher: So there's been a tendency, you know, in, in, in North America, this probably comes from World War II or, or maybe even a little bit beforehand, of thinking about universities as as fixers of social problems. Or fixers of economic problems. And, uh, you know, you've cautioned against assuming that universities can act as fixers of regional challenges, especially in in peripheral context. In Europe, I guess this is a more recent, uh, assumption about institutions, maybe 30 or 40 years old instead of 60 or 70. Where do you think that expectation comes from and what are the risks of leaning too heavily on it?
Romulo Pinheiro: Yeah. So I mean, these caution comes also from my field work, right. I remember too when I was doing my PhD many years ago, I was in South Africa at Nelson Mandela Metro and speaking with, uh, with, uh, with the vice chancellor there and he told me, look, uh, we are keen to play a regional, an active regional role, but we are not gonna clean the streets because the local government is failing to clean the streets.
We don't have capacity to tackle crime because the police doesn't have the resource to tackle crime. So he was very keen to say, part of our work is to go into the communities and educate them about both the possibilities, but also the limitations that universities and and academics have, and that it is not our role to solve, um, you know, the failure, the failure of market forces or, or, or government forces, right? And there's a tendency by some of these local officials to scapegoat University a little bit and say, you are not delivering right, because you are not helping tackling poverty and so on. And that's not to say universities don't have an important role, right? But in, you know, uh, most of us in the field belief universities have primarily a facilitated role. A generative role rather than acting as an engine for regional development. But of course, in those prefilled regions where the university is the larger employer, is the only knowledge institution, of course expectations are that the university has to play a disproportional role and often it tries to do so, and in many cases it succeeds. But in the majority of cases, university is one of many different knowledge actors in this very complex ecosystem, right.
Alex Usher: So I think you've got, uh, you know, your work has obvious, uh, ramifications for higher education leaders, but also for politicians, right? The ones who are funding these institutions. If there's one concept or one conceptual insight from your work that you think those groups should take seriously — higher education leaders and politicians, what would it be? It might not be the same for both, right? They could be different. They could be different for the different audiences.
Romulo Pinheiro: So, so again, as a traditional academic, let me give you two instead of one. So the first one, and I think I'm not the only one to say this, but I think my work reinforced that idea. Both universities and regions are complex entities. They are non monolith entities, right? And they tend to be approached both by politicians and by by university managers as simple strategic actors, right? They have their histories, they have their, you know, their institutionalized traditions, which are very difficult, you know, to, you know, to change. Uh, and as a result they should be, you know, any, uh, any approach of strategic, using strategic agency to move universities or regions in particular directions should take that into account.
The second aspect is linked to my recent work on resilience, right? Over time we have seen that universities have had this innate capacity to adapt to social change, right. And play very different roles. We see that the third mission, right, and you know, in the early 19th century is very different than the third mission today, right? And the university has had that ability so far to be able to, uh, you know, withstand and, and adjust some adversity while retaining some degree of function and identity, right? Now, in order to do that, we need two important ingredients. One is autonomy, which is being questioned at the moment, both procedural about, and substantial autonomy. The second one is diversity. We know from resilient studies that resilient institutions are diverse institutions, right? So when politicians and managers come with this idea of lean approach, right? We have two research groups in innovation doing more or less the same thing, let's kill or let's merge them. You are basically reducing diversity, right? And reducing diversity means that it reducing the ability of the institution to withstand possible adversities, whether it's covid or, or geopolitical conflict and so on. And that is dangerous, right? It's very, it's very tempting in the short run, but it's reduces the ability of these universities to adopt in the long run. And that's why most universities have been successful in adjusting to societal events over time. They have had these two ingredients, which are now, uh, in risk.
Alex Usher: Okay. So given that, what's the future of university community, uh, engagement in peripheral regions, like, like is there a trend that we can expect here over the next, say 10 years? Um, are institutions gonna be able to deliver more fully on their re the needs of their regions or are they gonna find it more difficult?
Romulo Pinheiro: Yeah, so, so as you know, Alex, we are very bad as academics to predicting the future, right? But we, we often go back to history and see how things have done, have occurred over time. And what we have seen, we see this transition of the, of, of the third, what we call the third mission, where it's regional development or social impact or engagement.
And what we see is a trend that this third mission is increasingly getting closer to the core activities, right? Today we can't even talk, social impact is at the core of any university mission. I, I guess this is, you know, is not new in the US but at least in Europe it's something that has occurred in the next 10 or 15 decades.
What I think is important and, and it seems to be that the work is being done in some colleagues in the UK, David, Charles, and others have alerted is, you know, let's see, what are the challenges facing our societies, right? Increasing popularization, uh, the rise of illegal democracies, uh, the post true society. So you, you should ask is what role do universities, particularly in peripheral regions, can have, right? In order to be able to uh, help their societies right, navigate this very turbulent environment. And by being the quintessential knowledge institutions, of course, universities play a very important role and should maybe be more active and aggressive in defending the importance of knowledge, the importance of truth. Uh, uh, I'm currently involved in some projects on regional green transitions, um, and, uh, the consensus seems to be universities play a very important role in mediating relationships amongst regional actors with very different agendas, right? They still have the legitimacy. They have been able to not being politicized enough to bringing different political actors into one roof and orchestrate, um, an agenda.
But, but of course that's time consuming. That doesn't necessarily always bring positive, uh, benefits in the short term. So there has to be a willingness by university leaders also to take risks, a willingness to allow academics to play roles that perhaps, uh, you know, do not necess, that move beyond these traditional roles of teaching and research. Um, so, so, so that's how I see things things, so a re a rediscovering of the civic role of universities in, in an, in an important historical moment where, uh, so moving a discussion from interests and money to values and norms.
Alex Usher: Romulo Pinheiro, thank you very much for joining us today.
Romulo Pinheiro: Thank you very much, Alex.
Alex Usher: And it just remains for me to thank our excellent producers, Tiffany McClennan and Sam Ufuk, and you, our viewers, listeners, and readers for following us. If you have any questions or concerns about today's episode or suggestions for future ones. Please don't hesitate to get in touch with us at podcast@higheredstrategy.com.
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