SUPERVISOR: Marianne PENKER

PROJECT ASSIGNED TO: Ines Hinterleitner

The Impact of Higher Education Institutions on Regional Sustainability Transitions

Higher education institutions (HEIs) with their missions teaching, research and the third mission are said to play an important role in bringing society on sustainable development paths (Kohl et al. 2022; Schneidewind and Singer-Brodowski 2014; Stephens et al. 2008; Trencher et al. 2014; Wakkee et al. 2019). Through working on identifying sustainable development paths, HEIs focus on inducing change outside of their institutional boundaries through teaching, research or third mission (Radinger-Peer and Pflitsch 2017; Stephens et al. 2008). While the literature on how HEIs need to change on organizational and institutional levels to account for sustainable development is manifold (Barth et al. 2018; Bohunovsky et al. 2020; Deleye et al. 2019; Giesenbauer and Müller-Christ 2020; Kohl et al. 2022; Rieg et al. 2021), less is known about the impact HEIs have on sustainable development outside of their organizational and institutional boundaries (Barth and Rieckmann 2018; Deleye et al. 2019; Demele et al. 2021; Findler et al. 2019; Radinger-Peer et al. 2021; Vaughter et al. 2013), especially in their respective region (Schiller et al. 2020).

The aim of this doctoral thesis is to address this gap with the main research objective being the investigation of the impact of HEIs on regional sustainability transitions (RSTs). I take a closer look at the involved actors who contribute to HEIs impact on RSTs and aim to identify pathways of impact and impact areas. Qualitative research methods, including expert/stakeholder interviews and qualitative analysis of secondary data, will be employed to achieve the research objective.
Figure

Figure 1: Simplified schematic conceptualization of the subject area: the effects of the university on regional sustainability transitions, influenced by (1) international and national higher education policy framework conditions, (2) university actors and requirements, (3) regional actors and requirements (own illustration)

Case Studies

This doctoral thesis applies a case study approach comprising two case studies. A case study approach is particularly useful for this doctoral thesis to be able to identify

(1) HEI internal and regional actors for impact creation;
(2) past and present impacts and the conditions under which they appear(ed); and
(3) future impact pathways of the case study areas.

University of Innsbruck and University of Bern were selected as case studies due to (1) both being considered “normal-practice” universities regarding sustainability, (2) similar sustainability as both are
located in the Alpine region, (3) similar demographic criteria and (4) differing institutional contexts (e.g., EU membership vs. non-EU membership, different financing structures, different cultures, etc.).
This PhD project is conducted within the UNIRE projects which investigates universities as institutional entrepreneurs for regional sustainability transitions.

Project website: https://unire.boku.ac.at/en/unire-about-the-project/

Publication bibliography

Barth, Matthias; Michelsen, Gerd; Rieckmann, Marco; Thomas, Ian (Eds.) (2018): Routledge handbook of higher education for sustainable development. First issued in paperback. London, New York, London, New York: Earthscan from Routledge;
Routledge Taylor & Francis Group (Routledge international handbooks).

Barth, Matthias; Rieckmann, Marco (2018): State of the Art in Research on Higher Education for Sustainable Development. In Matthias Barth, Gerd Michelsen, Marco Rieckmann, Ian Thomas (Eds.): Routledge handbook of higher education for sustainable development. First issued in paperback. London, New York, London, New York: Earthscan from Routledge;
Routledge Taylor & Francis Group (Routledge international handbooks), pp. 100–113.

Bohunovsky, Lisa; Radinger-Peer, Verena; Penker, Marianne (2020): Alliances of Change Pushing Organizational Transformation Towards Sustainability across 13 Universities. In Sustainability 12 (7), p. 2853. DOI: 10.3390/su12072853.

Deleye, Maarten; van Poeck, Katrien; Block, Thomas (2019): Lock-ins and opportunities for sustainability transition: A multilevel analysis of the Flemish higher education system. In IJSHE 20 (7), pp. 1109–1124. DOI: 10.1108/IJSHE-09-2018-0160.

Demele, Uwe; Nölting, Benjamin; Crewett, Wibke; Georgiev, Georgi (2021): Sustainability Transfer as a Concept for Universities in Regional Transformation—A Case Study. In Sustainability 13 (9), p. 4956. DOI: 10.3390/su13094956.

Findler, Florian; Schönherr, Norma; Lozano, Rodrigo; Reider, Daniela; Martinuzzi, André (2019): The impacts of higher education institutions on sustainable development: A review and conceptualization. In IJSHE 20 (1), pp. 23–38. DOI:10.1108/IJSHE-07-2017-0114.

Giesenbauer, Bror; Müller-Christ, Georg (2020): University 4.0: Promoting the Transformation of Higher Education Institutions toward Sustainable Development. In Sustainability 12 (8), p. 3371. DOI: 10.3390/su12083371.

Kohl, Katrin; Hopkins, Charles; Barth, Matthias; Michelsen, Gerd; Dlouhá, Jana; Razak, Dzulkifli Abdul et al. (2022): A wholeinstitution approach towards sustainability: a crucial aspect of higher education’s individual and collective engagement with the SDGs and beyond. In IJSHE 23 (2), pp. 218–236. DOI: 10.1108/IJSHE-10-2020-0398.

Radinger-Peer, Verena; Pflitsch, Gesa (2017): The role of higher education institutions in regional transition paths towards sustainability: The case of Linz (Austria). In Rev Reg Res 37 (2), pp. 161–187. DOI: 10.1007/s10037-017-0116-9.

Radinger-Peer, Verena; Pflitsch, Gesa; Kanning, Helga; Schiller, Daniel (2021): Establishing the Regional Sustainable Developmental Role of Universities—From the Multilevel-Perspective (MLP) and Beyond. In Sustainability 13 (13), p. 6987. DOI: 10.3390/su13136987.

Rieg, Nicola Andreij; Gatersleben, Birgitta; Christie, Ian (2021): Organizational Change Management for Sustainability in Higher Education Institutions: A Systematic Quantitative Literature Review. In Sustainability 13 (13), p. 7299. DOI:10.3390/su13137299. 

Schiller, Daniel; Kanning, Helga; Pflitsch, Gesa; Radinger-Peer, Verena; Freytag, Tim (2020): Hochschulen als Agenten des Wandels für eine nachhaltige Regionalentwicklung? Hochschulen und nachhaltige Regionalentwicklung aus der Transition-Perspektive. In Rolf-Dieter Postlep, Lorenz Blume, Martina Hülz (Eds.): Hochschulen und ihr Beitrag für eine nachhaltige Regionalentwicklung. = Universities and their contribution to sustainable regional development. Hannover: ARL - Akademiefür Raumentwicklung und Landesplanung (Forschungsberichte der ARL, 11), pp. 119–176.

Schneidewind, Uwe; Singer-Brodowski, Mandy (2014): Transformative Wissenschaft : Klimawandel im deutschen Wissenschafts- und Hochschulsystem. 2. Auflage. Marburg: Metropolis-Verl.
Abstract PhD Project Ines Hinterleitner

Stephens, Jennie C.; Hernandez, Maria E.; Román, Mikael; Graham, Amanda C.; Scholz, Roland W. (2008): Higher education as a change agent for sustainability in different cultures and contexts. In IJSHE 9 (3), pp. 317–338. DOI: 10.1108/14676370810885916.

Trencher, G.; Yarime, M.; McCormick, K. B.; Doll, C. N. H.; Kraines, S. B. (2014): Beyond the third mission: Exploring the emerging university function of co-creation for sustainability. In Science and Public Policy 41 (2), pp. 151–179. DOI: 10.1093/scipol/sct044.

Vaughter, Philip; Wright, Tarah; McKenzie, Marcia; Lidstone, Lauri (2013): Greening the Ivory Tower: A Review of Educational Research on Sustainability in Post-Secondary Education. In Sustainability 5 (5), pp. 2252–2271. DOI: 10.3390/su5052252. 

Wakkee, Ingrid; van der Sijde, Peter; Vaupell, Christiaan; Ghuman, Karminder (2019): The university's role in sustainable development: Activating entrepreneurial scholars as agents of change. In Technological Forecasting and Social Change 141, pp. 195–205. DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2018.10.013.