Universities and Regional Advantage in the Knowledge Economy: Markets, Governance and Networks as Developing in English Regions Fumi Kitagawa A thesis submitted to The University of Birmingham for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The Centre for Urban and Regional Studies School of Public Policy The University of Birmingham October 2003 University of Birmingham Research Archive e-theses repository This unpublished thesis/dissertation is copyright of the author and/or third parties. The intellectual property rights of the author or third parties in respect of this work are as defined by The Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 or as modified by any successor legislation. Any use made of information contained in this thesis/dissertation must be in accordance with that legislation and must be properly acknowledged. Further distribution or reproduction in any format is prohibited without the permission of the copyright holder. Abstract This thesis examines the links developing between the universities and their regions in the globalising knowledge economy as observed in the UK. It examines institutional responses to two realms of policies, namely, higher education policy and regional development policy. The diversifying missions of universities, especially, the ‘third stream activities’ promoted by the UK government since the late 1990s, are set against the dynamics of the multi-level territorial governance structure emerging within Europe. The key question examined is: can the new institutional strategies of universities in order to compete in a globalising market be reconciled with the increased emphasis upon their regional engagement in various policy agendas? The tensions created here are explored through an examination of policy discourses, and by means of empirical evidence concerning different institutional networks in different spatial contexts, in particular, in the West Midlands Region and at the University of Birmingham. Applying Jessop’s strategic-relational approach to institutions, networks are conceptualised as strategic alliances creating the dynamics of regional innovation systems emerging within the nine English regions. The thesis argues that harnessing universities to the creation of regional advantage involves building networks of knowledge flows across different spatial scales at which the knowledge economy is organised. Acknowledgements I hereby express my sincere gratitude to the following bodies and people. First of all, I would like to thank the School of Public Policy, the University of Birmingham, for financial support through which I could conduct my research and maintain myself for the three years of period of study. Gratitude is also expressed to Universities UK for providing an Overseas Research Scholarship award (ORS) which covered the fee differences between EU and non-EU students. I would like to thank my supervisors at the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies (CURS), the School of Public Policy. Without them, the endeavour of conducting PhD research would not have been possible. Mr. Chris Collinge has supervised my thesis for the last three years. Mrs. Barbara Smith has always given me warm encouragement, and checked through my writing very neatly. I am very grateful for sharing the history of the University of Birmingham with Barbara through the thesis. Mr. Chris Watson, who initially introduced me to CURS, has provided me with very warm support, especially towards the end of my PhD thesis. Dr. John Gibney gave very useful suggestions and comments as a second supervisor in my first year of the study. I would also like to thank the panel members (Dr. Stewart MacNeil, Mr. David Mullins), who provided useful suggestions and comments throughout my study period. A big word of thanks goes to Ms. Sue Truman for every support she gave me. I am grateful to all the staff and colleague PhD students at the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies, who gave me stimuli and encouragement on various occasions. Special thanks go to Kath Morgan and Lynne Beighton for their encouragement and for taking me out of the campus from time to time. Without all these people, I would not have completed the study at the Centre. I would also like to express my gratitude to the following organisations and people, as they have played essential roles in my PhD journey. Firstly, the Regional Studies Association (RSA), for a number of conferences and social networks from which I benefited tremendously as a research student. Special thanks go to Sally Harding and Lisa Bibby Larsen of RSA. Another learned society, the Society for Research into Higher Education, provided me with insights and networks into the research into higher education. I am grateful to Mr. Richard Yelland and Mrs. Jacqueline Smith and their colleagues at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), who provided me with an opportunity to work as a trainee for several months in 2002. Special gratitude goes to the following people who have acted as academic ‘mentors’ through conferences, research interviews, publications and other occasions: Prof. John Goddard, Prof. David Charles, Dr. Paul Benneworth, Prof. Phil Cooke, Prof. Kevin Morgan, Prof. Mike Taylor, Dr. Jon Potter, Prof. Ian McNay, Prof. Chris Duke, and Ms. Beth Perry. Thanks also go to the friends/research students outside Birmingham whom I met during my study for sharing anxiety and aspiration of conducting PhD research. I would like to express my sincere thanks to those who answered my questions as part of my research at the University of Birmingham, in the West Midlands Region and other regions in England, in Paris and Brussels. I am not listing the names here, but without these interviewees, this research could not have been done and I am mostly grateful to all of them for sharing their time, their thoughts and experiences with me. Some of them kindly gave comments on my draft chapters, for which I am most grateful. Finally, I would like to thank my Japanese friends and family, and friends in other parts of the world for warm encouragement and kind support throughout my study. This has been a wonderful journey, thanks to all those who have helped me, and I would like to thank them all. Fumi Kitagawa Preface One of the interviewees said to me before answering my interview questions at The Sack of Potatoes, a pub near one of the science parks in the West Midlands Region. “Why did you come to England? Why are you doing research with such a topic? You are a complete enigma!” This represents the perception of one interviewee of the interviewer (see Chapter 2). Three years have passed so quickly. I came from Japan, and I came to Birmingham and started my PhD study in October 2000. It is worth noting here why I came to Birmingham to do a PhD as this seems to be one of the most common questions that people ask me when I say “I am doing PhD at the University of Birmingham”. It started from a contact I had made at the University of Oxford. One of the ESRC funded programmes Transnational Communities was based in the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology at University of Oxford. One of the projects under the programme was on “Japanese expatriate business communities in the UK” and, as a former student of International Relations and Cultural and Social Anthropology, that was my initial interest before I launched on my PhD. In early 2000, I visited one of the researchers who had conducted research on Japanese multinational firms in Telford, a New Town in the West Midlands and, through this researcher, I was introduced to Mr. Chris Watson, the Director of the Japan Centre of the University of Birmingham. After discussion with Mr. Watson, I decided to apply for a PhD place at the Centre for Urban and Regional Studies. Then, my academic interest was in the linkages between knowledge production of multinational firms and local/regional economic development. I wrote a research proposal and, very fortunately, I was accepted and awarded a research studentship at the School of Public Policy and further financial support from ORS. In the summer of 2000, before formally starting the PhD study, I conducted a short preliminary research project on Japanese multinationals in Telford, and about the West Midlands Region. Mr. Watson gave me a couple of key policy documents, which were just published by the Regional Development Agency, Advantage West Midlands, and other regional bodies. This was the start. I noticed that in Regional Innovation Strategy and in its Action Plans, there were many references to Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) as lead partners. Around the same time, I visited Telford, and realised that one of the Japanese multinationals was located just next door to the Telford campus of Wolverhampton University. My intuition worked. I thought there was something interesting going on with Universities in the Region. This is how it started. I rewrote my research proposal and the title of my thesis became “Higher Education and Regional Development Processes” though the title has changed since. Throughout my PhD research, I have encountered so many people, and a number of them became good friends, mentors and e-mail friends throughout my research. The encounters came through conferences, seminars, research interviews, and a work placement and a number of various other occasions. Also, I travelled a lot in Birmingham, the West Midlands Region, England, the UK, in Europe, and sometimes between Japan and the UK, to attend conferences, interview people, and to ‘network’. The rest of the thesis gives theoretical and empirical accounts of the changing landscapes of English higher education and regional development processes as I have experienced them. This is my own academic and personal account, but it is indeed part of the big national and global landscape. I could only write this thesis through all these encounters I have had over the last three years’ time.