The ‘grand challenges of the 21st century’, such as the ageing of European societies, climate change, the migration crisis and the war in Ukraine, are forcing European higher education institutions to reconsider their institutional strategy, including the redefinition of their public service mission (Compagnucci & Spigarelli, 2020; Farnell, 2020). Their reactive, proactive, or even pre-active response depends on a multitude of factors, many of which are deeply rooted in the university’s position in its local-regional context (Jongbloed, Enders & Salerno, 2008; Goddard, 2018; Benneworth, Ćulum, Farnell, Kaiser, Seeber, Šćukanec, Vossensteyn & Westerheijden, 2018; Tijssen, Edwards & Jonkers, 2021) and the diverse roles it is now socially expected to play: to develop the local economy, to serve its society, to support local sustainability, and to promote the region's green and digital transition (e.g. Trencher, Yarime, McKormick, Doll & Kraines, 2013; Maassen, Andreadakis, Gulbrandsen & Stensaker, 2019; Tödtling, Trippl & Desch, 2021; EURASHE, 2023). These can only be played via an effective collaboration with local-regional external stakeholders, whose management has long been a challenge for universities (e.g. Jongbloed et al., 2008; Tijssen et al., 2021). The conditions for the effective management of such relations are well established in Western European higher education literature (e.g. Kempton, 2019; Compagnucci & Spigarelli, 2020), but their scope needs to be deepened as the cases of regional universities in Central-Eastern Europe are poorly understood (e.g. Gál & Ptáček, 2019; Tödtling et al., 2021). Therefore, two regional entrepreneurial universities in this macro-region were examined (2020-2022), a Hungarian university of applied sciences, the University of Dunaújváros (UoD), and a Romanian comprehensive university, the Universitatea Transilvania din Braşov (UNITBv), to identify the conditions that either facilitate or hinder the establishment and operation of local-regional societal relations. Thus, the research questions inquired what factors facilitated the successful establishment and effective implementation of local university-external stakeholder relations in the Dunaújváros (Hungary) and Braşov (Romania) urban areas, and what difficulties prevented the establishment, or hindered the effective implementation of such collaborations. The results were compared to each other and to the findings of the major Western and Eastern European literature, of which a model had been developed, then interpreted in the Regional Innovation Impact Assessment Model of universities (Tijssen et al., 2021; EURASHE, 2023), thus shedding light on the ’black box’ of ’Regional Innovation Impact delivery space’ (Tijssen et al., 2021). The research results highlight the extent the said factors of the wider European context apply to these Central-Eastern European cases, how much they can be considered unique, and enrich the existing literature with new operating conditions.

For theoretical framework the interpretative constructivist approach was adopted in a research model of exploratory-descriptive comparative case study design of two cases conducted as a cross-sectional study between 2020 and 2022. For data collection semi-structured narrative interviews were used (Flick, 2018). As for sampling, non-probability purposive sampling was applied for the two universities: first by the logic of typical cases, then convenience sampling. Selection dimensions (Flick, 2018) were geographical location, regional importance and similar educational profile as both universities are located in Central-Eastern European non-metropolitan areas (Gál & Ptáček, 2019) (UoD: HU211, UNITBv: RO122), their counties lie in NUTS2 statistical regions, both cities have followed a similar industrial development path since WWII (ex-‘Stalin Cities’, EC, 2016) and their higher education institutions were founded with similar aims. They also have a primarily regional scope, even if UoD is a medium-sized university of applied sciences, while UNITBv is a large-scale comprehensive university, while both are the only higher education institutions in their urban areas (Gál & Ptáček, 2019), and UoD’s educational profile is part of UNITBv's portfolio. Data source selection was made by the critical case strategy and expert or elite sampling. Thus UoD’s rector and two of UNITBv’s vice-rectors with the head of the university's office of corporate relations were interviewed. For the external stakeholders a multi-stage sampling procedure was used: group selection by maximum variation (Flick, 2018) based on the quadruple helix model (Carayannis et al., 2018), then relevant organisations within the stakeholder groups were identified by critical cases, whose representatives were selected by expert or elite selection. Thus senior and middle managers from local government and companies, directors of institutions and other organisational leaders. In the UoD sample 4 business and 5 public administration organisations, 5 NGOs and 3 secondary schools were available (22 interviews), while in the UNITBv sample 2 businesses, 2 public administration organisations and 1 NGO without any secondary schools (8 interviews). The verbatim interview transcripts were processed by qualitative content analysis (Flick, 2018) following Schreier’s (2012) guidelines. Using the combined coding approach, two multi-level (3), highly complex coding grids were developed, then the main coding process was performed with MAXQDA 2022. The results of the data analysis were presented through profile matrices generated by the Code Matrix Browser feature, as well as case-oriented thematic summaries and cross-case comparisons.

The two universities’ common experience shows that unique local resources, matching supply and demand, positive attitudes, trust, external cooperation opportunities, adequate financial resources and university staff interest are indeed key to the realisation of collaborations in this macro-region as well. However, such well-known conditions as the partner organisations' capacity to absorb new knowledge and geographical proximity do not appear, while common local identity for the Romanian, and the external partner's university management membership for the Hungarian cases are of high importance. New supporting factors include the prominent role of continuous and meaningful communication, the willingness to innovate, diplomatic flair, a professional and goal-oriented attitude, personal relationships between the parties, and the prioritisation of support for local society at the level of university strategy. In terms of constraints, path dependency, an autocratic university management, the capacity constraints of the external partner, the specificities of the local industrial structure, and an unstable and inadequate legal environment were factors confirmed, while there are some new conditions: a bunch of attitudinal factors, difficulties due to the diversity of regional societal actors, communication gaps, and a number of practical problems. The findings may help the two universities to strengthen their internal resources, identify and manage the risks in their partnerships, renew their cooperation with the organisations studied, and develop their institutional practices in the third mission in a targeted way. However, the limitation of this research is its case study nature, which requires a broader investigation of the facilitating and constraining factors on a wider Central-Eastern European sample in order to understand how specific and/or generalizable their experiences are to the regional universities of this macro-region.

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