Regional mission impossible?:The Twente Region and the University of Twente

A well-functioning regional innovation system involves a lot of communication and interaction among the actors. However, sometimes the communication and interaction create tensions impeding regional development. In order to explore the reasons behind this, this study looks at the relationships between key stakeholders in the Twente Region in the Netherlands. The region has an established reputation for innovation and entrepreneurship, a high inter-connectedness between the actors, and a strong knowledge infrastructure. The research focuses on the University of Twente as a key actor contributing to regional growth in close cooperation with various stakeholders. This is an introductory interview-based case study that identifies four areas of tension between the university and its regional stakeholders. Our inquiry sheds light on the misalignment of stakeholders’ interests and expectations that lessens the actors’ capacity for policy formulation and strategic agenda setting, as well as hinders its successful translation into action. Then, the absence of clear intermediaries significantly increases the perceived distance between the University of Twente and the Twente region and impedes the university’s collaboration with companies outside the science and business park. Next, the tension of discontinuity highlights the complexities of human resources and personalised networks – their diversity, multidimensionality, and overlaps make it harder to synchronise action and enhance reciprocal benefits. The knowledge asymmetry between the parties further complicates their communication and weakens commitment. In the end, the paper offers a few ideas for action for academic leaders and regional policymakers

Universities as strategic agents in regional path development? A European comparison

This paper contributes to the discussion on the role of universities in regional path development, emphasizing the different agency types adapted. Accordingly, literature on ‘new path development’ is combined with the three agency types of innovative entrepreneurship, institutional entrepreneurship and place-based leadership. This paper applies a long-term qualitative empirical approach with three case studies–Aalborg (Denmark), Kaiserslautern (Germany) and Twente (Netherlands). Results reveal that different types of agency are closely interwoven and complement each other in their effects on regional (industrial) path development. Additionally, the agency types are strongly influenced by (a) highly motivated individuals/frontrunners, (b) support and openness from the university leadership and (c) regional structures that facilitate university-region collaboration and joint governance.</p

Large-Scale Dataset Pruning in Adversarial Training through Data Importance Extrapolation

Their vulnerability to small, imperceptible attacks limits the adoption of deep learning models to real-world systems. Adversarial training has proven to be one of the most promising strategies against these attacks, at the expense of a substantial increase in training time. With the ongoing trend of integrating large-scale synthetic data this is only expected to increase even further. Thus, the need for data-centric approaches that reduce the number of training samples while maintaining accuracy and robustness arises. While data pruning and active learning are prominent research topics in deep learning, they are as of now largely unexplored in the adversarial training literature. We address this gap and propose a new data pruning strategy based on extrapolating data importance scores from a small set of data to a larger set. In an empirical evaluation, we demonstrate that extrapolation-based pruning can efficiently reduce dataset size while maintaining robustness.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures, 3 tables, to be published in ICML: DMLR worksho

Universities and place leadership : a question of agency and alignment

There is increasing interest in the question of how different stakeholders develop, implement and lead regional upgrading processes with the concept of place leadership emerging as one response to this. Simultaneously, universities face growing expectations that they will contribute to regional development processes - often through their collaborative relationships with other regional stakeholders. But universities are complex in terms of their internal and institutional structures, which undermines their capacities to enact coherent place leadership roles. We seek to understand how strategic leadership in universities can contribute to innovation and regional development in the context of the fundamental institutional complexity of universities. We address this through a qualitative, explorative case study comparing six European regions where universities have sincerely attempted to deliver place leadership roles. We identify that the elements of agency and alignment are vital in that: firstly, university leadership has to align with regional coalitions on the one hand and internal structures on the other hand, and secondly, this leadership must give give individuals agency in their regional engagement activities

Embedding entrepreneurial regional innovation ecosystems: reflecting on the role of effectual entrepreneurial discovery processes

The encouragement of collaboration between regional stakeholders is increasingly emphasised in innovation policy as a way to activate the inherent agency in a regional innovation system. Partnerships of diverse stakeholders have been identified as critical, being able to envisage and implement future pathways that in turn bring change to a region. Thus, knowledge concerning the regional assets and possible future pathways is supposed to be discovered through cooperation between diverse stakeholders. Nevertheless, it has been recognised that these agency activation approaches often fail to deliver consequential transformations, agreed by partners in terms of a long-term vision. Sotarauta argues that partners may find themselves falling into a ‘black hole’ when subsequent policy cycles repeat earlier successes rather than consolidating those successes into more systemic change. Accordingly, understanding the conditions under which regional stakeholders can, through a process of constructive dialogue, build realistic and adaptable strategies that can shift regional development trajectories still remains a substantial challenge in innovative regional development theories. In this paper, we argue there is an issue arising from the way these agency activation strategies are supposed to develop long-term plans, as partners’ mind-sets may be too causal and lack the flexibility to reorient strategies in their implementation phases. Focusing specifically on one of these agency activation approaches, namely smart specialisation, we reflect on whether there are also the possibilities for more effectual (opportunistic/flexible) approaches to entrepreneurial discovery. We use a qualitative case study approach comparing entrepreneurial discovery processes in three less successful regions, namely Twente (Netherlands), Aveiro (Portugal), and Lincolnshire (UK), drawing on interviews with key stakeholders as well as analysis of process reports and policy documents

Reconnecting the University to the Region of Twente : Findings from the RUNIN-Design Lab Think Tank

The RUNIN project's Design Lab Think Tank took place on 28th June 2018. Its aim was to discuss the topic of universities' engagement with society, specifically in their region. It used a world café format that brought together regional stakeholders to discuss how the University of Twente (UT) can incorporate societal questions in its core activities and, through this, create regional benefits. This report provides a description of the event, a summation of the initiatives proposed and an analysis of the discussion that was prompted by the sub-questions around the subject of universities' societal engagement