6,1998 Working Document Local intervention, a qualitative shift in the form of local policy towards indigenous entrepreneurship and the provision of a beneficial environment for mobile capital so as to maximize local value added, has become increasingly important to economic success. This has led to greater concern to harness university education and research for specific economic and social objectives. Nowhere is this demand for specificity more clear than in the field of regional development.
Regional development implies an understanding of regional dynamics.
For Universities this can mean the provision of an audit of existing regionally relevant activities. This session was organized in an unusual participatory format to provide participants in the audience with a way to voice their ideas. The session began with a series of speeches and lectures, including the keynote speech by John Goddard, Rector of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne. Next, the participants broke up into a number of small working groups to discuss policy recommendations on how to get universities more involved in technology transfer, socio-economic development and other goals. There were a number of themes that emerged from the speeches and debates, including the idea that universities had to reconcile multiple functions and dichotomies across several areas.