Paul Benneworth is a senior researcher at the Center for Higher Education Policy Studies, University of Twente, the Netherlands, and Agderforskning, Kristiansand, Norway.

This book explores how universities in less successful regions contribute to processes of regional economic development and innovative growth.

Universities are complex organisations, and can have difficulties in producing co-ordinated action around their knowledge production and circulation activities. Given an emerging emphasis on global status within higher education, there is also a risk that academics might be encouraged to de-prioritise regional engagement activities.

This volume will be the first book to explicitly foreground this tension, taking a comprehensive comparative overview of universities in European economically peripheral regions, and making suggestions for developing better - and more place-specific - policies for improving these university-regional collaborations.

Chapter 1 Universities and regional development in peripheral regions Paul Benneworth & Lisa Nieth Chapter 2 Universities and neo-endogenous peripheral development: towards a systematic classification Paul Benneworth & Lisa Nieth Chapter 3 Towards a strategic alignment: Regional challenges and university tensions in peripheral geographies Rómulo Pinheiro Chapter 4 University roles in a peripheral Southern European region: Between traditional and 'engaged' roles through the provision of knowledge intensive business services Hugo Pinto, Elvira Uyarra, Manuel Fernandez-Esquinas Chapter 5 'Strange bird': A peripheral university college in a complex, peripheral region James Karlsen Chapter 6 Universities and Regional Economic Development: Engaging with the Periphery Nina Kyllingstad Chapter 7 Vysocina region: from a remote rural region straight into the virtual world Libor Prudký, Michaela smídová Chapter 8 Ústí region: learning hard about industry modernisation Inna Cábelková & Jan Kohoutek Chapter 9 Higher education institutions at the periphery of the periphery: creating sustainable economic development in Estonia Anne Keerberg Chapter 10 Universities and regional economic development in cross-border regions Jos van den Broek, Franziska Eckardt & Paul Benneworth Chapter 11 Constructing Regional Resilience in a Knowledge Economy Crisis - the case of the Nokia-led ICT Industry in Tampere Heli Kurikka, Jari Kolehmainen & Markku Sotarauta Chapter 12 Conceptualising the university-region economic development interface in peripheral regions Paul Benneworth and Lisa Nieth Chapter 13 Future perspectives on universities and peripheral regional development Lisa Nieth and Paul Benneworth