The emergence of collaborative approaches in innovation policy and regional governance has increased expectations for universities to engage in strategy making and assume broader roles and responsibilities. Nonetheless, complexities inherent to the policy process, regional context and universities’ own institutional and organisational capacity are often ignored or under-explained when framing universities’ roles. Although these roles are frequently introduced, they have been superficially conceptualised in the literature. This study develops a deeper theoretical and empirical understanding of universities’ contributions in the different stages of regional innovation strategy processes. Through a comparative case study of four European universities, it explores the variation of these roles by policy stage and university actors involved in the strategies. Findings suggest universities have expanded to perform new planning-related roles (e.g. consultation, mediation) and that diverse factors (e.g. the regional context, such as urban versus peripheral) determine their participation in regional strategies. However, strategic coordination within universities and with regional bodies is needed for the optimisation of their engagement in the regional governance process.

JEL Codes: I23, I25, O20, O30, R58

合作政策在创新政策和区域治理中的出现，提高了人们对大学参与战略制定并承担更广泛的角色和责任的期望。但是，在确定大学角色时，往往会忽略或解释政策过程，地区背景以及大学自身的机构和组织能力所固有的复杂性。尽管经常介绍这些角色，但在文献中已将它们概念化。这项研究对大学在区域创新战略过程的不同阶段做出的贡献有了更深刻的理论和实证理解。通过对四所欧洲大学的比较案例研究，它探讨了这些角色在策略阶段和参与策略的大学参与者之间的差异。研究结果表明，大学已经扩大到履行与规划相关的新角色（例如，咨询，调解），并且各种因素（例如，区域背景，例如城市还是外围）决定了他们参与区域战略。但是，需要在大学内部以及与区域机构进行战略协调，以优化其在区域治理过程中的参与度。

JEL代码： I23，I25，O20，O30，R58