It Takes Two Sides to Build a Bridge

There is a widespread assumption that successful regional innovation policiesare dependent upon place leadership from coalitions of actors. These coalitions- consisting of different organisations such as regional authorities, companies oruniversities - are assumed to work together seamlessly and develop/enact collectiveinnovation agendas to achieve regional development. The university is an importantcoalition partner because of its role as a producer and disseminator of knowledge.However, universities are complex organisations, sometimes lacking strong singularstrategic interests. In this dissertation, I address the role of universities and howtheir organisational dynamics and particularities influence their participation inregional innovation coalitions as well as their contributions to regional innovationpolicy processes.More specifically, I focus on acts of institutional entrepreneurship undertaken byuniversity employees and argue that alignment is a key issue. I identify two alignmentcircuits as being essential for the university’s contribution to regional development:(1) alignment of the diverse regional actors, and (2) internal alignment of universitystakeholders. Universities have links at different organisational levels and interactwith various external partners, thus creating a dynamic and powerful - but oftenunpredictable - framework. This dissertation contributes to debates on institutionalentrepreneurship, place leadership and agency and argues that more attention foralignment can encourage and empower the university’s institutional entrepreneursto address regional challenges.