UNIVERSITIES IN THE LEARNING ECONOMY: Balancing Institutional Integrity with Organizational Diversity

Over the past decade there has been an increased discussion on how universities can play a more effective role in contributing to promote wealth creation in Europe. A significant stream of that discussion has regarded American universities as a reference and has resulted, within the diverse range of institutions in the European higher education system, in various organizational and strategic arrangements that go much beyond the traditional roles ascribed to education and research. The unifying characteristic of these different arrangements is provided by the unique characteristics of “the university” as a societal environment for exploration and interpretation of knowledge. Under this context, we begin by describing traditional perspectives on the impact of universities on economic prosperity and by discussing recent conceptual advances that shed new light on the importance of formal and informal learning processes for economic development. We conclude that while the role of the university needs to be re-examined, the institutional integrity of universities must be preserved. The analysis is focused on engineering education, where the variety of demands and the continuously changing social and economic environment surrounding the discipline is calling for diversified systems able to cope with the need to integrate policies for the generation and diffusion of knowledge. Within this broad perspective, the role of universities in promoting sustainable socio-economic development is discussed, namely in terms of the traditional functions of teaching and research, but also by promoting living environments that facilitate the ability to understand the development of sustainable societal conditions and entrepreneurship.