Universities and Regional Sustainability Transitions

The research project "Universities as institutional entrepreneurs in regional sustainability transitions", in short "UNIRE", addresses the question of what contribution universities can make to regional transformation processes towards sustainability. These transformation processes are considered indispensable, taking into account current societal challenges such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and ensuring food security. The goal of sustainable development was already formulated in the 1990s. A central principle of these complex, long-term and place-specific transformation processes is participation, i.e. the involvement of a large number of different actors (e.g. from politics, civil society, business and science). Universities in particular are expected to contribute to sustainability transformations in their spatial environment and region of location through a wide variety of impact channels - teaching, research and third mission activities. However, universities and the science system are currently characterized by features that stand in the way of this contribution to sustainability transformations in their spatial environment: e.g. disciplinarity, competition for third-party funding and students, established performance indicators stand in the way of inter- and transdisciplinary research projects, collaborations with regional actors on sustainability issues, etc. Nevertheless, some studies have shown that individual actors within the university have succeeded in stimulating institutional and organizational change and thereby contributing to sustainability transformations in their region. Based on two case studies, the UNIRE project explores the questions: who are these actors? What distinguishes them? How and with which resources did they succeed in triggering institutional and organizational change within the university? How has this subsequently affected the regional environment? The detailed examination of these processes at the micro level represents a novel and innovative contribution to the current state of research. Methodically, the UNIRE examines the history of the university-region relationship of the last 25 years by creating a transition topology. On the other hand, the future role of the university in regional sustainability transformations in the next 25 years will be elaborated in a scenario process together with actors from politics, civil society and business.