Universities as change agents for sustainability e framing the role of knowledge transfer and generation in regional development processes Verena Peer, Gernot Stoeglehner * University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Department of Landscape, Spatial and Infrastructure Sciences, Institute for Spatial Planning and Rural Development, Peter Jordan Str. 82, 1190 Vienna, Austria article info Article history: Received 3 July 2012 Received in revised form 28 November 2012 Accepted 2 December 2012 Available online 23 December 2012 Keywords: University Change agent Sustainable development process Ownership Knowledge abstract This paper explores opportunities for universities to contribute to local and regional development processes, apart from classical knowledge transfer within education and lifelong learning. In order to draft an analytical framework for the university-society relationship in regional development processes, we introduce three theoretical frameworks: planning, learning, and implementation theory, as well as shift the research perspective from university to regional development processes. The elaborated framework is applied to two case studies in Austria: the Montagsakademie, an initiative of the Karl- Franzens University in Graz, and PlanVision, an energy research project between the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna and the Town of Freistadt. From the analysis can be concluded that knowledge provision is not enough to establish the university as a change agent. In order to reach this effect, “ownership” of knowledge within local and regional communities has to be achieved. This ownership affects the level of values (shared visions and objectives concerning sustainable devel- opment) and the level of facts (addressing the skills for implementation and action) and can best be attained through joint knowledge generation. Universities that want to act as change agents have to thoroughly consider collaborative ways of research and education in informal learning environments so that knowledge demand, knowledge transfer and knowledge generation can be negotiated and jointly determined between local and regional societies and universities. Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction At the end of the 1980s, the Brundtland Report “Our Common Future” (WCED, 1987) introduced the concept of sustainability into local, regional, national and global development processes. Striving for balanced social, ecological and economic development, the concept of sustainability offers a productive encounter with complexity, to the extent that it neither denies this complexity nor reduces it in an unacceptable manner (Adomssent et al., 2007). The concept of sustainability launches several new principles: (a) increasing significance of the local and regional level (“think global, act local”); (b) public and stakeholder participation; and (c) inte- grative, holistic approaches to regional and local challenges. To implement these principles in regional development (RD) processes the action programme “Local Agenda 21” (LA 21) was brought into being. The sustainability concept enlarged the “traditional” means in RD (such as financial incentives) with several others, including technology transfer, education, public awareness raising, training, information for decision making etc. (Section IV “Means of Implementation” of the Agenda 21 declaration). This shift in the orientation of RD processes towards sustainability, among other things, changes the perception of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) within RD: from their “traditional” roles as mere educational infrastructure and research institutions, to “new” roles as drivers for innovation and stakeholders in public and private partnerships as well as in planning processes (Chatterton and Goddard, 2000). This change of expectations around the role of HEIs in RD is influenced by supra-national European Policy: the European Union aims to establish a competitive, knowledge-based and innovative European region; at the same time the sustainability of this development has to be assured (KOM, 2001). Within these policy frameworks (Lisbon Agenda, Gotheburg Strategy, European, 2020 strategy), RD processes striving for sustainability focus on the following aspects relevant to HEIs: - empowerment of the local population through education and lifelong learning (ÖROK, 2002); * Corresponding author. E-mail addresses: verena.peer@boku.ac.at (V. Peer), gernot.stoeglehner@ boku.ac.at (G. Stoeglehner). Contents lists available at SciVerse ScienceDirect Journal of Cleaner Production journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jclepro 0959-6526/$ e see front matter Ó 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2012.12.003 Journal of Cleaner Production 44 (2013) 85e95