European project strengthens the role of the UAB in regional development

06/10/2016

The University of Stavanger (UiS) in Norway will coordinate the project RUNIN, acronym for the Role of Universities in Innovation and Regional Development, a project in which the UAB will participate alongside six other European universities and nine firms working on regional development from a total of seven European countries. The objective is to prepare an international research on regional innovation and, more specifically, on the role of universities in the innovation and development of a region.

The project includes a training programme for innovative researchers. The candidates will receive solid training in research, as well as the skills needed to advance in both the industry and the public sector. A total of 14 PhD students will participate by forming part of PhD programmes offered at the member universities and in public and private organisations working on regional development.

The PhD students participating will have a supervisor from one university assigned to them, as well as another supervisor from one of the other universities, and a mentor from one of the public or private organisations participating. A total of 21 supervisors and 11 mentors will be working on the project.

The research will be a collaboration between the University of Stavanger, Norway, coordinator of the project; Aalborg University, Denmark; University of Lincoln, UK; University of Twente, the Netherlands; Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona; Linköping University, Sweden; and University of Aveiro, Portugal.

The research will be structured into four large areas. First, there will be "People and Networks”, the role of individual persons and their social networks in transferring knowledge between universities and private firms. This is especially interesting for universities, where individual academics have wide autonomy and are able to develop extensive networks. Second, the interaction between universities and public policies in "Policies and Interventions" will be examined. A third area of study will be "Places and Territory" and their role in structuring the interactions between firms and universities. The role of universities in regional innovation relies heavily on the industrial structure and on the importance of the firms found in the region. The fourth area of study will be “Practices and Governance”, where the objective lies in examining the changing practices of university-firm interaction and how this affects the governance of universities and helps firms survive in an increasingly global and competitive market. Researchers from the UAB will be in charge of supervising the correct functioning of this research area.

The UAB will welcome two PhD students, who will participate in the Doctorate in Economics, Management and Organization (DEMO) of the UAB Department of Business. They will be in charge of analysing the types of collaborations existing between university and firms, and how these collaborations affect the survival of firms in a competitive environment, under the supervision of Professor Emili Grifell-Tatjé; and they will also develop the concept of the quadruple helix, i.e., expanding the traditional triple helix (university – industry – government) to include the role of civil participants, under the direction of Professor Pilar Marquès.

The project will last four years and has been allocated 3.7 million Euros by the Innovative Training Networks (ITN) of the Marie Sklodowska-Curie programme, under the framework of the Horizon 2020 programme.

All universities participating in the project are members of the ECIU network, a European consortium made up of innovative universities with close ties in terms of knowledge and technology transfer to the regions in which they are situated, and with a strong entrepreneurial spirit. The UAB is member of this network, which currently is presided by UAB Professor Lluís Tort. The RUNIN project will serve to strengthen the ties among these innovative ECIU member universities and the fundamental role they play in society, as well as to boost their potential as a driving force in their respective regions.