Mathieu Doussineau (p), Eskarne Arregui Pabollet , Markus Dettenhofer (p)

Ana Dias Daniel

The role of higher education institutions (HEI) in the Smart Specialization Strategy (S3) has attracted greater attention, particularly on the increased demands by governments for universities to become more responsive to regional needs and challenges to unleash the full potential of the knowledge-based economy. The way in which universities bring together research, education and engagement missions is guided by their governance practices, which can, as well, facilitate S3 processes. Governance of HEI is among the factors identified as having a major impact in the research performance of universities and therefore university rankings. However, the way in which the quality of the governance system of a university influences its capacity to become regionally responsive and engaged in the collaboration dynamics with other actors of the regional innovation system, has so far attracted less attention. Although there have been several models put forward to guide governance practices which have the underlying conditions of democratized legitimacy to institutional norms, putting these to practice, have been a challenge. Our approach, is survey which governance dimensions are currently in place in 74 HEI across 25 EU member-states. The 74 HEI were ranked according to their total Governance Index score and distributed among 5 groups. The HEI were further examined for their partipation in the European funding programmes as they align with their S3 priorities. The survey demonstrated that governance dimensions, when segregated across macro-regions, either north, south, east, and west EU, as well as the geo-political regions of EU-15 and EU-13, certain trends became evident. Based on the internal governance dimension scores, the best performing regions were from the north, followed by the west, then the east, and southern EU countries, additionally the Northern EU members scored substantially higher in both the Innovation Potential dimension of governance and S3 alignment.

Ana Dias Daniel (p), Andreia Vitória, Carlos Rodrigues, Aurora Teixeira, Miguel Torres Preto, Gonçalo Brás

Sabine Sedlacek

Higher education institutions and research organizations have been widely recognised for its relevance in the promotion of economic growth and competitiveness, which has foster the development of entrepreneurial university concept. Due to its potential impact, various actions have been taken by national governments and the European Commission to instigate the development of more entrepreneurial universities. The present study had a twofold objective. On the one hand, it aimed to evaluate the Entrepreneurial Function of several Portuguese public universities, and, on the other hand, it intended to understand the factors that can stimulate (or hinder) the development of this function. To achieve these goals, a quantitative and a qualitative approach were used. The results indicate that the differences between the Entrepreneurial Function of the Portuguese public universities, measured through perceptions of their academic community, are influenced by polices and initiatives related to entrepreneurship and promoted by the institutions themselves. Furthermore, results also show that (a) the cuts in financing from the government budget; (b) the legal restrictions, associated with the statute of the teaching career, which condition the compatibility with entrepreneurship, and (c) the organizational culture are the main factors that have hindered the development of Portuguese universities’ Entrepreneurial Function.

Gunther Maier (p), Sabine Sedlacek (p)

Mathieu Doussineau

In this paper we report the results of an online survey of European lecturers in Regional Science and related disciplines about the usage of videos in their teaching. Our goal is to contrast the theoretical knowledge about the effectiveness of videos as a tool for learning and in particular for inspiring and engaging students with the empirical reality of our discipline in Europe. We want to find out, whether or not this new (digital and Internet based) educational tool is used to its full potential in our teaching. We suspect that it is not and will therefore also try to identify barriers of acceptance which may be located in various areas (knowledge, experience, accessibility, expectations, etc.). All these aspects will be discussed in our paper.