National higher education policies challenging universities’ regional engagement activities

Policy-makers increasingly acknowledge universities as important actors to foster regional development, resilience and innovation. National higher education policies frame universities as drivers of innovationbased national and regional economic development and innovation. Nevertheless, despite these efforts, universities face the challenge of national higher education policies undermining their regional development activities. National policies in teaching and research have the potential to take precedence and crowd out the delivery of the third mission. In this paper, we present an overview of the ways in which national policies can have the potential of limiting the scope of universities to engage in regional development. We identify three kinds of policies in this respect: teaching policies, research policies and administrative policies. To provide empirical insights, we subsequently explore the tensions between the policy logics and the universities’ regional roles in a single higher education system. The case study is Norway where universities are perceived as important actors to hold communities together in more remote rural areas. We conclude our paper by a series of propositions for the effects of national policies on regional engagement and to identify areas where further research is needed.