Sustainability Transfer as a Concept for Universities in Regional Transformation—A Case Study

Abstract

The research object of this study is the in-depth discourse on the sustainability transfer activities of higher education institutions (HEIs) and their contribution to a regional sustainable transformation. For this purpose, a heuristically-derived concept of sustainability transfer is empirically tested with a mixed-methods approach based on the example of Eberswalde University for Sustainable Development (HNEE). The empirical findings demonstrate that the realization of sustainability transfer depends mainly on the personal initiative of teachers and researchers. Major barriers are a lack of time and financial resources. The observed concept of sustainability transfer is applicable to all study and research areas of HNEE. Involvement in sustainability transfer can include the whole of society, from politics, enterprises, and civil society to education and research institutions. Overall, the empirical testing of the concept offered by this study illustrates its practical suitability to capturing specifically those sustainability transfer activities that are not tapped by third mission approaches. This opens up a novel dimension for transfer potential at universities and their role in regional sustainability transformation. It also highlights that the interdependencies between HEIs and practitioners need to be more contextualized with quality criteria such as the value of the transfer performance or level of ambition.

Building a Culture of Entrepreneurial Initiative in Rural Regions Based on Sustainable Development Goals: A Case Study of University of Applied Sciences–Municipality Innovation Partnership

“…A major contribution of the present research is the presentation of a unique case study in the triple helix and the TMU literature, since a university's partner in developing entrepreneurship is a municipality coming from the governmental sector; in addition, the setting of the researched cooperation is rural. While the latter has been researched by a handful of studies [9,15,31,34,[51][52][53], the former has not been mentioned in the previous literature in the sense of an action-oriented working relationship, although it has been mentioned in the theoretical postulation of the third mission. For example, Etzkovitz and Zhou [3] notice that one of the most regarded innovation regions-Silicon Valley, developed from a Stanford engineering school-was initially located in the rural region.…”

“…TMU activities for regional sustainability can vary from an outreach in the form of taking part in public debates, all the way to multi-stakeholder networks which encompass training, research, and regional development [22]. A recent stream of research, which has focused on universities of applied sciences (UAS), has introduced the concept of sustainability transfer, where an UAS acts as an agent of regional sustainability transformation by providing a specific combination of practical knowledge, strategic, and normative orientation to regional actors, as well as facilitating a bi-directional flow of knowledge, ideas, and technology between academia and practice [14,31]. This concept appears to be similar to the general third stream activities which include both knowledge transferring from university to industry as well as forging close institutional links with industry through third mission activities such as consultancy and contract research, student projects in industry, capacity building, and continuing professional education [16].…”

Nachhaltige Entwicklung von Hochschulen

“…Zum Ende der Projektlaufzeit wurde der Leitfaden überarbeitet (Nölting et al, 2021b) und zwei Handreichungen für die praktische Anwendung ausgearbeitet (Nölting et al, 2021a, c). Im Anschluss an das HOCH N -Projekt wurde das Konzept in einer explorativen Fallstudie zu Nachhaltigkeitstransferaktivitäten an der HNEE empirisch untersucht (Demele et al, 2021).…”

“…In einer an das HOCH N -Projekt anschließenden explorativen Fallstudie zu Nachhaltigkeitstransferaktivitäten an der Hochschule für nachhaltige Entwicklung Eberswalde (HNEE) wurde das Konzept für eine empirische Überprüfung operationalisiert sowie qualitativ und quantitativ untersucht (Demele et al, 2021). Dabei konnte die Tauglichkeit des Konzepts und der Begrifflichkeiten für eine empirische Analyse gezeigt werden.…”

“…Abschnitt 4.2). Hierbei reicht es nach unserer Einschätzung nicht aus, auf die "guten" oder "richtigen" Absichten zu vertrauen, auch wenn eine empirische Erhebung an der HNEE zeigt, dass eine hohe intrinsische Motivation und Selbstorganisation wichtige Treiber für Nachhaltigkeitstransfer sein können (Demele et al, 2021).…”