The universities worldwide, and in particular in the UK, are challenged by a dualism of development and engagement, which involves, on the one hand, widening internationalization, and on the other hand, a need to broaden the regional inclusion. In the context of the recent national and regional policies universities mobilize their inner resources to allocate part of them to the regional agenda. However, to be a prosperous regional contributor, not only in economic sense, universities have to be successful globally and be able to attract international students and staff, including ‘start scientists’ and top managers or leaders but not only, as well as resources, to develop the knowledge production and transfer and invest in regional development. _x000D_
The research’s aim is to investigate the role of academic mobilities in underpinning local and regional development through the framework of spatial capital (introduced by J. Levy). The approach takes into account not only flows and mobilities, but also their embeddedness in the places they originate from and their properties. It acquires a (single) case study methodology, which is constituted by the expert interviews, survey (with university students), and observation.The methodology focused on a single case – the North East and Tees Valley, England (UK), presented as a bounded system, with incorporated and interrelated ‘events, relationships, experiences and processes occurring in that particular instance’ (Denscombe, 2010).

Alena Myshko
Ca’ Foscari university

 
ID Abstract: 966