The Widening Local and Regional Development Impacts of the Modern Universities — A Tale of Two Cities (and North-South Perspectives)

Abstract

Universities have widening missions. Increasingly these include explicit roles in local and regional development. This article focuses on such roles for the UK modern universities (formerly known as the new universities, and previously polytechnics). Such universities have taken considerable interest in their local and regional development roles, as exemplified by the case studies of Sunderland University and Oxford Brookes University. The discussion widens from the direct and indirect employment and expenditure impacts, to effects on the local knowledge economy, and towards a wider contribution to sustainable development. This holistic view shows that the modern universities are making major contributions to the local and regional development agendas, with interesting regional variations resulting from their institutional and locational contexts. Such returns merit considerable support.