In attempting to grasp the many and growing roles and interactions of universities with their local, regional, national, and global communities, one needs to disaggregate, disaggregate, disaggregate. That is a message that David R. Charles provides with real clarity and purpose in this new Pascal Hot Topic. Charles gives particular attention to the social and political cultural differences in how regionalism is perceived between the UK and Australia as part of his successful effort to illustrate the nuances of university interaction and entrepreneurial drive – a difference in part driven by the sheer size of Australia and its pattern of development, where regional means non-urban. 

From these and other meta-observations, Charles drills down to the behavioral and conceptual ideas of how universities, governments, and business can, do, and might interact based on the concept of ‘leadership of place’. Tugging on a theme that I often reiterate, he says that step one in the path to self-analysis and self-realization of an institution is to, ‘identify the historical development of a university . . . inevitably rooted in certain institutional contexts that may have a specific spatiality’.  Complex organizations such as universities, he notes, must ‘recognize the multi-stranded and multiple level nature of external interactions’. 

To some degree, ‘all globalization is local’, a play an old saying in US politics that ‘all politics is local’ that I use often. Charles offers a very stimulating discussion and analysis that, in essence, is a sort of self-help guide for an institution, and its government and business, and for what profit and non-profit cultural organization partners should think about in their mutual engagement. 

This last partner, or constituent, depending on your view, is interestingly integrated into Charles’ essay, in a field often dominated by discussions of labor market needs, intellectual property generation, business support mechanisms, and regional economic drivers. Based on a lengthy period of reflection and study, he strengthens the growing realization that the quality of life overall in a region or locality is and will be a paramount factor in generating future economic activity; further, that, for example, inequitable distribution of income and socio-economic status is not only a moral dilemma, but a drag on regional economic activity, making the region a less attractive place to the increasingly mobile talent pool of the world.  

So when universities, and their stakeholders, push for expanding regional economic plans, Charles urges careful thinking about the benefits and difficulties of including disadvantaged communities. Part of the key is creating a dialogue, and going beyond what he describes as an ‘expert-supplicant relationship’.  

A stimulating read, to be sure.  

John Aubrey Douglass, Senior Research Fellow in Public Policy and Higher Education, Center for Studies in Higher Education, UC Berkeley. http://cshe.berkeley.edu/people/jdouglass.htm   douglass@berkeley.edu