An examination of the role of universities in developing regions. The themes include the development role of a university in peripheral regions as diverse as northern Sweden and southern Israel, and the role of universities in training professional administrators and doctors.

Part 1 Theoretical issues: potential university contributions to development policymaking, Y.Dror; academic involvement in developing areas - small efforts for a huge task, J.Romanowski; new technologies, old universities and democratic societies, I.L.Horowitz; specialization and the problem of communication within and across academic disciplines, R.Hollingsworth. Part 2 Universities and the Urban Environment: Indian universities and the urban environment, P.T.Mahadev and T.Vasantha Kumaran; an urban university wrestles with its environment - the case of Columbia University in the City of New York, P.Marcus; information, development and the urban university - redistributive power in a developed nation, M.Rosentraub and R.Warren. Part 3 Universities and professional development: developing a university policy studies programme, S.S.Nagel; public service education and the university's role in development management, C.Lewis and M.J.Tenzer; the Negev primary care project - a meeting of medical education and health services in the community, B.Poter. Part 4 National case studies: cosmopolitanism and indigenization in Third World higher education - a case study of the University of Kebangsaan, Malaysia, S.Gopinathan; international transfers of educational forms - the case of the People's Republic of China, J.Hawkins; the development role of the University of Norland, J.E.Lane; universities, politics and development - the case of Northern Ontario, G.R.Weller; the sociology for work and life on the Canadian resource frontier - a uranium mining community, N.T.Nguyen; the role of a university in a peripheral region - the case of the Ben Gurion University of the Negev, F.Lazin and Y.Gradus.