Higher education has acquired a priority in the national policy agendas with its integration into the innovation system by showing certain capacity and capability and claims for impacts on economy and society (Hazelkorn & Gibson, 2019). Accordingly, it is claimed that entrepreneurial university has become a pathway that most of the universities have entered in the discourse of knowledge economy and society (Aarrevaara et al., 2021) and universities are expected to bring a transparent mission and vision forward over this pathway (Secundo et al., 2016). The main rationale of this study refers to the need of understanding the empirical and political implications of the evolving entrepreneurial university model on the economic and social bases. This argument also touches upon the shift towards the engaged university model by keeping the public good as a wider discourse defining the role and responsibilities attached to higher education.

This doctoral thesis, which is designed to be a comparative multiple case study, aims to reveal how regionally engaged universities formulate their missions and revise their actual strategies within the entrepreneurial paradigm. As the British and German higher education systems are regarded to be receptive to innovation and entrepreneurial paradigm on the European level (Etzkowitz et al., 2000), the design is based on the comparison of strategies of two entrepreneurial university contexts from these systems with the lens of neo-institutionalism.

This study perceives entrepreneurial university as a key actor to accomplish national and regional development policy agendas (Pugh et al, 2018). In this agenda, the third mission refers to the innovation-related activities pursued for regional development. Accordingly, third mission policy on the national and regional levels has the direct power to steer university engagement practices. For example, on the European policy level, regional development is incentivized through the funding programmes of the EU Europe 2020 agenda and smart specialization strategies (Trippl et al., 2015). Despite the policy emphasis, universities’ approaches to engage in local/regional development vary in terms of social and economic engagement modes. Keeping these variations in mind, the diversity among engagement practices and the different configurations of entrepreneurial university context in the European context are linked to the differences in policy paradigms, higher education traditions and institutional contexts (Kalar and Antoncic, 2015; Trippl et al., 2015).

Constructed with multi-level qualitative research design across cross-nationally selected universities, this study adopts the lens of neo-institutional theory to advance knowledge regarding the institutional reproduction or transformation in entrepreneurial university concept. Neo-institutional theory will be used as a framework for the analysis of not only differences but also similarities in a cross-national design and denote sociological viewpoint to comparison by displaying isomorphic and culturally shaped transformations across institutions (Wiseman, 2014; 2021). As observed in the literature, the institutional theory has been adopted in relation to the entrepreneurial university for the understanding of the interaction between the micro (individual level) and the meso (institutional level) (Abreu et al., 2016). For this study, the same levels are essential as organisational culture and norms shape everyone involved within the organisation. In line with these core ideas, the research questions below are aimed to be answered.

1. How have the third mission strategies been addressed in the German and UK higher education contexts through national and regional policy levels?

            1.1. How are the institutional strategies regarding entrepreneurialism and engagement       contextualised within regionally engaged universities?

2. How are institutional strategies enacted by the internal stakeholders in regionally engaged universities?

            2.1. What roles do the university actors take for the social and economic development of their regions?

            2.2. Which modes of engagement are pursued in both university contexts?

For this particular PhD study, the multiple case study design is adopted for in-depth examination of the argument involved. Specifically, the comparative design is built on two cases embedded in regional and national dimensions vertically (Schweisfurth, 2019). Accordingly, this multiple case study entails the comparison of two cases on the meso level strengthened with the analysis of macro- and micro- levels. At the current stage of my doctoral research, I have obtained ethical approval and strive to build contacts with universities. Therefore, the planned design and anticipated findings will be explained. Firstly, even if it is not selected to be the primary level of analysis, the macro level encompasses two geographically different macro-social units, the German and British higher education systems which possess certain unique characteristics that originated from different historical traditions (Humboldtian and Newmanian) and current dynamics. For this study, these two systems will be explanatory units with all the mutual reliance among the global, the national and the local levels (Kosmützky, 2015). The nested policy levels of national and regional will be analysed through thematic analysis of relevant policy documents to see the trends in regional engagement since regionalisation of the policy agenda has shifted the university engagement patterns (Arbo & Benneworth, 2007). On the meso-level, two regionally oriented universities that have been awarded as entrepreneurial universities in both higher education systems are to be observational units where empirical study will be conducted. The university types are specified to be university of applied sciences and former polytechnics. Because universities of applied sciences, fachhochschule in Germany (Charles et al., 2021) and former polytechnics in the UK (Sanchez-Barrioluengo et al., 2019) have demonstrated more regional and local engagement in terms of the third mission and entrepreneurial endeavours. The institutional strategies of these two universities will be analysed through document analysis. Besides, to understand the organizational norms, values and traditions in a diverse manner, semi-structured interviews are aimed to be conducted with the academic personnel who have established and pursued regional engagement practices at the university, management-based staff, officers who are responsible for engagement or take responsibilities in technology transfer offices and students who are interested in entrepreneurship.

The entrepreneurial universities participating in this study are expected to embrace the missions of teaching, research and entrepreneurial activities. As Urbano and Guerrero (2013) indicated, these missions encompass the support structures (technology transfer, start-ups), resources (human, physical and monetary), capabilities (networks and status) and lead to the outcomes of talented human capital, created and transferred knowledge, development of academic entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial university culture. Analysing the strategies on the institutional level to reach these outcomes will also show how policy diffusion is observable, especially for the third mission related policies (Ozolins et al., 2018). It is also anticipated that the findings will contribute to the debate between two schools of thought regarding entrepreneurialism in higher education. As Young and Pinheiro (2022) depicted, entrepreneurialism resides in the sociological and economic schools of thought highlighting respectively the adaptation and transformations over public good and universities as quasi-firms where prestige and bibliometric counts are pursued as power mechanisms other than money. Entrepreneurial university is evaluated to be moving towards the dominant side of the economic/innovation perspective by leaving the sociological origins aside. However, as the engaged university model advocates, the strategies of internal stakeholders can show how the third mission can be less aligned with the economic development perspective, but more inclined to civic service in the shape of community engagement for the regional society and its members through regional development purposes (Moussa et al., 2019; Watson et al., 2011).

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