Higher Education and Smart Specialisation in Lower Austria

John Edwards () and Sybille Reichert ()
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John Edwards: Policy Experimentation and Evaluation Platform
Sybille Reichert: Reichert Consulting

No JRC124126, JRC Research Reports from Joint Research Centre

Abstract: This technical report presents the results of a case study in the region of Lower Austria, as part of the project on Higher Education for Smart Specialisation (HESS), an initiative of the Joint Research Centre and DG Education, Culture, Youth and Sport of the European Commission. The action research approach that is normally adopted in HESS case studies, namely to develop and implement the case study in close contact with the regional authority and local innovation actors, was limited due to the Covid pandemic, which broke out shortly after work began. Much of the research had to be conducted online, but a final event could be held to discuss the results once the pandemic has ended. Nevertheless, the case study of Lower Austria provides a particularly interesting perspective on the subject of how Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) can be harnessed to support innovation. While many of the other HESS case studies involved regions with historically important traditional universities, Lower Austria only has relatively small Universities of Applied Sciences (UAS) and the Donau University Krems, an internationally renowned public university that specialises in continuing professional development courses and degree programmes. However, the government of Lower Austria has made up for this through strategically targeted cooperation initiatives with these HEIs, research institutes and traditional universities from neighbouring Vienna, while using its oversight of the UAS sector to boost their presence in the region.

Keywords: Smart specialisation strategies; higher education institutions; universities; territorial development; human capital; skills; innovation and growth; entrepreneurship (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 46 pages
Date: 2021-03
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-knm
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ipt:iptwpa:jrc124126

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