IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/envira/v48y2016i5p910-936.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

New institutional geographies of higher education: The rise of transregional university alliances

Author

Listed:
  • John Harrison
  • Darren P Smith
  • Chloe Kinton

Abstract

This article opens up debates about the deepening uneven geographies of higher education through a critical analysis of transregional university alliances. Focusing on the formation of research consortia and Doctoral Training Centres, we reveal the emergence of over 50 transregional alliances between United Kingdom universities. Despite each consortium operating at a variously defined regional scale there has been no explicit attempt to account for their geographical basis. Providing the first-ever analysis of this unfolding phenomenon, we demonstrate how the rise of transregional alliances is indicative of, and a response to, universities operating in an intensely neoliberalised political economy. Bringing together emergent theories of regionalism with emerging worlds of (neoliberal) higher education, our article reveals how, why and where universities are engaging in more intensively targeted, exclusive approaches to regional development. We argue that higher education is conducive to the weakening of fixed regional territories, and propose the metaphor of ‘regional constellations’ for interpreting transregional geographies. Finally, our analysis suggests that while high-performing research institutions may compete better by forming consortia, transregional alliances lead to a more unequal and divided university sector.

Suggested Citation

  • John Harrison & Darren P Smith & Chloe Kinton, 2016. "New institutional geographies of higher education: The rise of transregional university alliances," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 48(5), pages 910-936, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:48:y:2016:i:5:p:910-936
    DOI: 10.1177/0308518X15619175
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0308518X15619175
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/0308518X15619175?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. John Harrison, 2007. "From competitive regions to competitive city-regions: a new orthodoxy, but some old mistakes," Journal of Economic Geography, Oxford University Press, vol. 7(3), pages 311-332, May.
    2. REITEL Bernard & SOHN Christophe & WALTHER Olivier, 2009. "Cross-border metropolitan integration in Europe (Luxembourg, Basel and Geneva)," IRISS Working Paper Series 2009-02, IRISS at CEPS/INSTEAD.
    3. Christophe Sohn & Bernard Reitel & Olivier Walther, 2009. "Cross-Border Metropolitan Integration in Europe: The Case of Luxembourg, Basel, and Geneva," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 27(5), pages 922-939, October.
    4. Fumi Kitagawa, 2009. "Creating Critical Mass of Research Excellence in the Region: The Case of Scottish Research Pooling Initiatives," European Planning Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 17(3), pages 487-495, March.
    5. John Allen & Allan Cochrane, 2007. "Beyond the Territorial Fix: Regional Assemblages, Politics and Power," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(9), pages 1161-1175.
    6. Jesse Heley, 2013. "Soft Spaces, Fuzzy Boundaries and Spatial Governance in Post-devolution Wales," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 37(4), pages 1325-1348, July.
    7. Gordon Macleod & Martin Jones, 2007. "Territorial, Scalar, Networked, Connected: In What Sense a 'Regional World'?," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 41(9), pages 1177-1191.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sabine Dörry & Olivier J Walther, 2015. "Contested ‘Relational Policy Spaces’ in Two European Border Regions," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 47(2), pages 338-355, February.
    2. John Harrison & Michael Hoyler, 2014. "Governing the new metropolis," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(11), pages 2249-2266, August.
    3. Fricke, Carola, 2014. "Grenzüberschreitende Governance in der Raumplanung: Organisations- und Kooperationsformen in Basel und Lille," Arbeitsberichte der ARL: Aufsätze, in: Grotheer, Swantje & Schwöbel, Arne & Stepper, Martina (ed.), Nimm's sportlich - Planung als Hindernislauf, volume 10, pages 62-78, ARL – Akademie für Raumentwicklung in der Leibniz-Gemeinschaft.
    4. David Clelland, 2020. "Beyond the city region? Uneven governance and the evolution of regional economic development in Scotland," Local Economy, London South Bank University, vol. 35(1), pages 7-26, February.
    5. Roger Keil, 2011. "The Global City Comes Home," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(12), pages 2495-2517, September.
    6. DECOVILLE Antoine & DURAND Frédéric & SOHN Christophe & WALTHER Olivier, 2010. "Spatial integration in European cross-border metropolitan regions: A comparative approach," LISER Working Paper Series 2010-40, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
    7. Xiaobo Su, 2014. "Multi-Scalar Regionalization, Network Connections and the Development of Yunnan Province, China," Regional Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 48(1), pages 91-104, January.
    8. Andrew E. G. Jonas & Andrew R. Goetz & Sutapa Bhattacharjee, 2014. "City-regionalism as a Politics of Collective Provision: Regional Transport Infrastructure in Denver, USA," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 51(11), pages 2444-2465, August.
    9. Jean-Paul D. Addie & Roger Keil, 2015. "Real Existing Regionalism: The Region between Talk, Territory and Technology," International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(2), pages 407-417, March.
    10. WALTHER Olivier & REITEL Bernard, 2012. "Cross-border policy networks in the trinational region of Basel," LISER Working Paper Series 2012-26, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
    11. Philippe Van Kerm, 2013. "Generalized measures of wage differentials," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 45(1), pages 465-482, August.
    12. Amir Hefetz & Mildred E Warner & Eran Vigoda-Gadot, 2012. "Privatization and Intermunicipal Contracting: The US Local Government Experience 1992–2007," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 30(4), pages 675-692, August.
    13. DURAND Frédéric & NELLES Jennifer, 2012. "Cross-border governance within the Eurometropolis Lille-Kortrijk-Tournai (ELKT) through the example of cross-border public transportation," LISER Working Paper Series 2012-16, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
    14. Kristina Zumbusch & Roland Scherer, 2015. "Cross-Border Governance: Balancing Formalized and Less Formalized Co-Operations," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 4(3), pages 1-21, July.
    15. OMRANI Hichem & CHARIF Omar & GERBER Philippe & BÓDIS Katalin & BASSE Reine Maria, 2012. "Simulation of land use changes using cellular automata and artificial neural network," LISER Working Paper Series 2012-01, Luxembourg Institute of Socio-Economic Research (LISER).
    16. Anna Growe & Mark Baker & Abbas Ziafati Bafarasat, 2020. "The Legitimation of Planning Processes as a Challenge to Metropolitan Governance," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(2), pages 1-24, June.
    17. Zhang, Xianchun & Sun, Yi, 2019. "Investigating institutional integration in the contexts of Chinese city-regionalization: Evidence from Shenzhen–Dongguan–Huizhou," Land Use Policy, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    18. Gordon MacLeod, 2011. "Urban Politics Reconsidered," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 48(12), pages 2629-2660, September.
    19. repec:irs:cepswp:12-25 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. Dening Chen & Zuxin He & Xinyi Hong & Xinxin Ni & Renfeng Ma, 2022. "Green and Low-Carbon Commuting Evaluation and Optimization of a Cross-Border Metropolitan Region by the Subway Network: The Case of Shenzhen and Hong Kong, China," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(8), pages 1-17, July.
    21. HaeRan Shin & Se Hoon Park & Jung Won Sonn, 2015. "The emergence of a multiscalar growth regime and scalar tension: the politics of urban development in Songdo New City, South Korea," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 33(6), pages 1618-1638, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:envira:v:48:y:2016:i:5:p:910-936. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.